


Enterprise: NCC-0001 (A Mostly Canon-Compliant Continuation of Star Trek: Enterprise)

by fromahermes9



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brain Damage, Canon Divergent Continuation, Disregards the Finale, F/F, F/M, Fal-tor-pan, Gen, I don't really ship T'Pol and Tucker but I'm trying to be canon compliant, I haven't watched Disco S3 so don't make fun of me if I contradict new Trill lore., Leftist Themes, Like seriously These Are The Voyages sucks, M/M, M/M Rares, Mental Illness, Not These Are the Voyages (Star Trek) Compliant, Other, Scary Clowns, Sharing a Brain, Trill Culture (Star Trek), Vulcan Mind Melds, Weird fic, hoshi is gay, jolly rancher, lots of ships, rarepairs, reed is gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28676196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromahermes9/pseuds/fromahermes9
Summary: This fic aims to be a continuation of Star Trek: Enterprise.It completely disregards the horrible finale in which a main character died and in which his death was trivialized by making the episode about somebody else from a different Star Trek series.It also aims to tweak certain character relationships and do better by the female characters that Enterprise treated poorly. I also have a need to make techonology make sense in a way that Star Trek does not prioritize, and that leaks into my work no matter how much I try to write Star Trek technobabble. As such it is not quite original-flavor, thought it attempts to be canon-compliant with the sole exception of disregarding "These Are the Voyages."Two chapters previously posted elsewhere under a different pseud.
Relationships: Jonathan Archer/Thy'lek Shran, Malcolm Reed/Soval
Kudos: 16





	1. Guests (Episode 5x01)

“ _Captain’s log, January 19_ _th_ _, 2156: It has now been two weeks since the refit[1] was completed, and Enterprise left spacedock over_ _Mars_ _. We have been sent to carry a team of human and Vulcan diplomats to a planet where a human freighter operating on the far side of Vulcan space has recently made first contact with a highly unusual people known as the Trill…”_

Archer finished the log and turned off the recorder. He checked his planner, found nothing scheduled for the next two hours and picked back up his ancient book club edition of Zelazny’s _Lord of Light.[2]_

Predictably, it was a few minutes and a few paragraphs later that the intercom beepes.

“Yes,” he said, trying not to grumble.

“Captain,” Hoshi said over the speaker, “I’ve received an encoded message from the Vulcan transport, marked… for your eyes only.”

“I’ll take it here.”

The image of Ambassador Soval appeared on his desk screen. Soval was one of the last of Archer’s father’s friends left alive, now that Emory had died. Archer had despised the Vulcan for most of his life, calling him slurs almost from infancy, but in recent years had come to trust him, to think of him as a crusty old uncle, even. Soval looked to be a fit and attractive man of fifty to human eyes but moved like a younger man and was in fact much older. He perpetually wore a stoic non-expression that Archer tended to interpret as ennui.

He spoke, faster than Archer had ever heard him speak. “Captain Archer, listen carefully, as this channel is not highly secure and the shorter the message is, the harder it will be to decrypt. The future of relations between our two worlds, as well as my personal fate, rests upon your discretion over the course of the next few days. I wish to defect to Earth.”

  
  


* * *

_It’s been a long road…_

_* * *_

The message went on. “Indeed, Captain, though some of us had anticipated otherwise, you and I included, the discovery of the Kir’Shara has only gone so far in healing the deep schisms of the Vulcan people. A year ago, I called you a divided people; the irony is not lost on me, Captain. While the followers of Syrran now control the upper chamber of the High Council, and while T’Pau[3] still ostensibly leads them, the majority of government offices are still held by the same individuals who have held them for the last decade or more, many of them now considered reactionaries in light of recent events, and there have been several disappearances of prominent pro-Syrran activists. I have reason to believe, as an individual who has chosen to meld openly, and as a new follower of Syrran, that I could be the target of another such disappearance. It is logical to assume that those who have disappeared are dead.

“My coming on this mission to the Trill world is a pretense. When my colleagues depart, I will remain on board with your permission. I ask you to request asylum from your government on my behalf. I ask you, Captain, as an old friend.”

Archer thought to himself, and at last he slowly nodded and called up to the bridge to request a secure channel to Earth. He owed the old bastard some common decency, at least.

* * *

Like every Sunday afternoon, Reed and Tucker were working out in the ship’s gym.

“Well, Trip,” Reed said, as he increased the speed setting on his stationary bike, “how are you settling in to the new engine room?”

Tucker grinned. “Malcolm, as big as the engineering spaces in the new hull are, I feel like captain of my own ship.”

Reed looked over at Tucker, who had only just started to pedal. “Just don’t let the Captain hear you say that, or he might be looking for a mutiny. How many engineering crewmen are being assigned?”

“Eh, he said it before I did. Hey, listen: there’s a big room three doors down from the new infirmary—”

“Sickbay, they’re calling it now.”

“Same thing. This big empty room was going to be for all Phlox’s pets, but he’s gotten permission to keep them in the old infirmary room. What about having a ship’s bar in that…? Malcolm, you seem a little preoccupied.”

“Do you… think Vulcans are ever… gay?”

Tucker looked over at Reed. If his face weren’t red from exertion already, Tucker could almost imagine that he would have been blushing.

“Malcolm, let’s think kinda, scientifically, for a moment: their population is tiny, and yet they tend to have multiple children when they do have them. I reckon the only way their population is so small is if…”

“Lots of Vulcans are gay?”

Trip nodded.

* * *

  
  


Admiral Gardner’s brow furrowed. “He’s asking for _asylum_? From his own people?”

“Yes, Admiral. I recognize that this could be construed as my crew’s fault. We did help destabilize their existing government and it was because of our investigation that he revealed he was melder, Admiral.” Archer sighed. “I feel responsible for him.”

“I can empathize,” Gardner said on the screen. “It’s going to be a diplomatic nightmare, Jonathan. Couldn’t this have happened a year ago, back when we weren’t in this damn coalition with them?”

“Yes, Admiral, it could have easily happened last year or the year before that, or whenever he slipped up and revealed his ability. I believe that’s the point.”

“I take your meaning, Captain. If Earth can’t… I’ll see what Starfleet can do. We have precedent for taking in disgraced Vulcans. Convey my sympathies and apprise him of our efforts Starfleet Command out.”

* * *

“I’m sorry, Cap, this is clearly a bad time. Forget I said anything.” Commander Tucker was leaning on the doorframe of the Ready Room, looking apologetic to have disturbed the captain’s reading.

Archer blinked and put down _Lord of Light._ “No, it’s a very interesting idea. I think we’re about to be assigned a long endurance mission… just rumblings from Starfleet Command, nothing concrete.”

“You mentioned at breakfast last week, Cap.”

Archer nodded. “If our mission to the Expanse is anything to go by, we need more recreational space on this ship.”

“I mean, a ship’s bar, though… I know it’s a pipe dream.”

“How much of the mess crew will it take? We can even get more mess workers assigned if we have to.”

“No, no, nothing that extreme, sir, just a couple of people to tend bar. I’ll even take a shift.”

* * *

The Vulcan transport carrying Soval and the other ambassadors arrived in the middle of day watch. Archer was surprised to see a small craft like one of the new experimental UESPA long-range shuttle rather than the huge needle-and-ring configuration he was used to when dealing with the Vulcan Science Fleet. Only minutes after dewarping sharply like only Vulcan ships do, it sat in the new shuttlebay in the engineering hull. Archer took the elevator down through the port pylon to welcome the diplomats. He chuckled to himself when he stepped out into the vast shuttlebay, like the owner of a new sports car. He was thoroughly satisfied with the refit.

When he came to the landing zone where the Vulcans and humans were disembarking, he shot what he earnestly believed to be a discrete wink in Soval’s direction. The Vulcan made no response. The head of the human contingent approached him and introduced himself as an “R. J. Detmer.”

“Captain, it’s an honor to come aboard. This is an historic mission, with potential for great ramifications for both our world and theirs. When may my aides and I brief you on the Trill?”

“As soon as you like,” Archer said. “I’ve cleared my schedule for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Afternoon?” Detmer said, offhand. “Oh, I see. I’ve been on Vulcan standard time for a month.”

Thirty minutes later, they assembled in the Captain’s Mess.

“The Trill,” Detmer began, putting on a rather stilted manner of speaking, “are the intelligences of the world in question, a group of related humanoid species that all correspond very roughly to Earth marsupials--”

“Ah,” Phlox broke in, with an expression of excited interest on his face. “More common than you might think!”

Detmer went on. “—their intelligence is typically in the upper human-Vulcan range, variable life-span with the longest-lived being on par with Vulcans, or possibly more; I don’t know the length of their year… Their politics are complicated, and they have been.... reticent to discuss them, but we gather that they are a loose empire ruled by a non-hereditary monarch, usually male, elected by hereditary noblemen from among themselves; rather like the old Holy Roman Emperor, if you recall. We know that one species or subspecies known as the “True Trill” make up almost all of the nobility, and every monarch is from that group as well. So, seen from a distance, the True Trill rule the others in an informal hegemony. We’ve never met a so-called True Trill.

“While the Vulcans—” and here he glanced across the table at Soval “—are pushing noninterference, as _always,_ we believe our presence may be key for the disadvantaged groups to break free of the dominance of the True Trill government, which has been going on for several hundred years.”

“How’s that?” Archer asked. He noticed that there was a hard edge on Soval’s silence, almost as though a Vulcan were _fuming._ It would not have been surprising for a human, as Detmer was clearly on the offensive, but for a Vulcan…

“We have asked to meet with representatives of all four species, including the True Trill. We hope to negotiate an alliance with all of the Trill, giving special privileges to none of them.”

This struck Archer as keen policy, not unlike Vulcan tactics. “You opposed this, Soval?”

“What Mr. Detmer has failed to mention is the fact that he has been given permission by your government to meet in secret with each of the three disadvantaged species individually, risking a conflict when this is inevitably discovered,” Soval said, in a very flat tone.

“You yourselves have done this,” Detmer said, looking at Soval. His face was red and his tone was a little harsh. “Your secret treaty[4] with the United States of America which helped bring about the United Earth, for instance?”

“The end result was planetary unity; we took the time to examine your politics before charging in; I doubt you have exercised this level of foresight. Your actions will sow discord without—”

For not the first time in his life, Archer interrupted Soval. “ _Gentlemen,”_ he snapped.

“My apologies, Captain. My government has sent me to assist and advise Mr. Detmer only. Your first contact, therefore your policy.”

Archer was surprised how easily Soval knuckled under. He realized that Soval had little personal stake in events now that his career was functionally over. “Now, what else do we know about the True Trill?”

* * * * *

The _Enterprise NCC-0001_ approached the Trill Space Platform. She looked far different than the smaller, slower ship that had put out from Earth during the Klingon crisis years before. A secondary hull had been added under the aft pod to house the new Warp Seven core, and her new nacelles were long and cylindrical, with Bussard Scoops glowing at the forward ends. The main hull had lost its deflector dish, replaced with a new one mounted forward on the secondary hull. New phase cannon arrays and deflector screens were in place on both hulls. Today of all days she looked especially graceful, trailing traditional Trill pennants in United Earth colors, blue and white, from the nacelles, to signify that she was a state ship sailing to a solemn occasion.

The Trill station was what Archer recognized as corresponding to a design he’d seen in an old Earth book[5], a plan for a space colony that had never been built. The name escaped him for a second before he remembered: Island One. It was built around a hollow, rotating central sphere a little over a mile in diameter, which would no doubt contain the main habitat, with the rotation providing centrifugal force to substitute for gravity. Inside it would look like a little inside-out planet, with buildings pointing in towards the center and dangling overhead in a way that would make his head spin. The superstructure consisted of a ring of small pods that rotated with it, which Archer recognized as being for storage and agriculture, and a non-rotating docking complex. Massive tattered fabric solar panels went out from the docking area in four directions, in the shape of the traditional forked pennants, giving the whole thing the look of a Maltese Cross, or more prosaically, a giant ceiling fan. The structure was about twice as large as anything humans had ever built in space, and it demonstrated a great mineral wealth in the Trill worlds.

“Three years ago, I would have said that this was impossible from an engineering standpoint. I’m very impressed,” Archer said when it came on the bridge viewer.

Detmer, who was standing next to the Captain’s chair, said “you will not find it indicative. They built it a hundred years ago and have done little else on the same scale. They bought warp drive from the Kobheerians[6] a little before then, and they have done little trade with the outside world. They have about six colonies, most of them in this cluster of stars.”

“We want to trade for their metals?”

“And metallurgical equipment. They process high-tensile-strength alloys at incredible scales, or at least, they used to. We want them to help us build factories on Mars and at the new colony on Barnard’s. The cooperation of their engineers would benefit us incredibly.”

Within a matter of a few minutes, _Enterprise_ was fully inside the docking bay of the station. Umbilicals were connected at the docking ports on the secondary hull. Archer and the bridge crew met the Trill delegation at the airlock.

First out of the airlock stepped a humanoid in what looked like extremely fine clothes: a kilt-like garment of shimmering fabric around his waist, coming down to a little way above the knee, a silk-like white cloth wrapped many times around his mid-section like the undergarment of a kimono, and a long, scarlet cape that dragged the floor, attached to a kind of shoulder-cup or epaulette on each shoulder. His feet and legs were bare, as was his chest, and he strode with high arching steps and the confidence and pride of a king. He seemed human, even attractive to human eyes, with muscular legs and a finely-formed face. The only thing that possible marked him as an alien was the line of tattoos or dark freckles running down his face and body on either side. When he walked, he swung his arms by his sides, and when he stood, he folded his hands oddly in front of his stomach.

“Captain, allow me to save you some time,” he said, ignoring the two head ambassadors standing on either side of Archer. “I’m the one you’re here to see. I represent the species known as the Trill Vatesh, the highest culture this planet has produced.

“So I guessed, Mr… uh…?”

“Solim Varell. I have two names; mark that.”

And with that the True Trill strode off without so much as glancing at Soval and Detmer.

Next out of the airlock came a humanoid[7] with a triangular ridge on his forehead, simply dressed to Archer’s eyes, in what resembled nothing so much as a plain shirt and bib overalls, with the difference that the narrow pant legs disappeared inside high, rough leather boots that had never been polished.

“I am Bosh,” the man said, when Detmer looked at him enquiringly. “Of the Southern Continent.”

“May I be the first to extend you the diplomatic courtesy of the United Earth government,” Detmer said.

“You may…” Bosh said, looking bewildered.

“And on behalf of the Vulcan High Council, welcome,” Soval said.

Next, Bosh was joined by two others, also plainly dressed, a female with spots like Varell’s and a male with pronounced cartilage ridges around his nose and bushy eyebrows.[8] Archer couldn’t help double-taking at the man’s bare feet: broad, frog-like appendages that appeared to be adapted for swimming.

“I take it that you are the rest of the delegation?” Archer asked.

“Please, forgive us,” Bosh said. “If we’d known there should have been more of us…”

“No, no,” Archer said. “We’re glad to see you.”

Detmer wrinkled his brow. Was this the infamous Archer Approach to diplomacy? Acting very friendly and smiling too much?

“I don’t understand,” the woman with freckles said. “But I am glad to be here.”

  
  


* * * * *

In the conference room, Solim Varell paced back and forth, barely deigning to look at any of the other dignitaries around the table. “I insist that this is a waste of time! These people are _rabble,_ chosen by the unwashed workers of our rural areas. I _alone_ speak for my world in your case.”

“And yet,” Soval intoned, seeming bored in his tone but filling the conference room with his voice, “your King acquiesced quite easily to our request to have them present.”

“Your request was laughable, but it was not difficult. His majesty Adim Saxar is famously magnanimous! But why do you insist on acting as though there is some importance to these _people?_ ”

“Let me tell you a story,” Detmer said, beginning to play the part of a country lawyer.[9] “On my world, long ago there was something called Apartheid…”

Hoshi, sitting next to Detmer at the conference table, raised her head from her hands and immediately buried it again. Detmer was lashing out at random.

“…In which the majority of a smallish country’s population were of one ethnic group and the ruling minority were of another. Injustices against the former group abounded and tensions rose until a man named Ste—”

There came sudden darkness and the falling hum of large transformers going offline.

“What’s going on?” Varrell demanded.

The lights came back on. Tucker’s voice came over the intercom, a Southern twang not unlike Detmer’s. “We’re having some computer problems and we’ve just lost main power to the saucer hull. I sent up auxiliary power as soon as I found out.”

But no one paid much attention, because they were looking at Detmer’s blood pooling under his head on the mahogany of the conference table. Phlox was summoned; he was nearby and arrived in thirty seconds. It was too late. Detmer was dead.

* * *

 _“Calm down, Ambassador,”_ Archer said. “I was just on the line with Mr. Detmer’s wife via the Vulcan relay. The man had a small son. The wife doesn’t know how or when to break it to him that his father is dead… The momentary inconvenience to _you_ in this situation is frankly no concern of mine. This treaty isn’t life-and-death to me, though from what I’ve heard it might be for some of the species on your planet. If anything, _you_ should be accommodating to _us._ I need you to cooperate while we investigate this murder.

“Now you will please return with your security escort to where you were waiting before.” Archer caught his breath, very conscious of the fact that he had never signed up to be a diplomat, let alone shout at diplomats for a living, as he seemed to do so much lately.

He looked across at Varrell, whose face was flushed. Suddenly, he felt a sort of undefinable pity for the Trill standing there. He thought of a quote that he could not place, about how you only see little things from the mountain peak. The beautiful, wealthy nobleman sitting before him lived in a world where there were mostly little things compared to himself, or to his position, rather, and that made Archer feel sorry for him, if not to any great extreme.

The ambassador regarded Archer for a moment and his expression seemed to soften gradually, perhaps mirroring Archer’s own. “Very well. Convey my condolences to his wife. I knew him a short time, and we were not… as it were… on friendly terms, but it grieves me to see him senselessly killed.” He turned and followed the MACO out of Archer’s office.

Soval entered a few moments later, escorted by another MACO.

“Come in, sit down, Ambassador.”

“Captain,” Soval said as he sat down, “there is no need to inform me that I am a suspect in the murder of Ambassador Detmer. In fact, to a Vulcan investigator, I might be the prime suspect, having…”

“Because you’re a melder, because you were arguing with Detmer beforehand, and so on—Soval!”

“Captain?”

“I _know_ you.”

Soval thought for a moment. “Yes.”

“In the first place, Soval, you aren’t a coldblooded killer—”

The Ambassador raised an eyebrow. “Coldblooded?”

“It’s just an expression. Second, if you were, I think a Vulcan of your age and education would pull off a murder far better than this.”

“It seems to me that this crime was well-enough executed: a man is dead.”

“I mean,” Archer said, throwing his hands up, “you wouldn’t have multiple witnesses placing you immediately next to the victim before and after the lights were out, and I _don’t_ think you would have had a public disagreement with him so shortly before killing him.”

“Very logical, Captain. I have never considered the practical concerns of murder.”

“Of course not, Soval. However, I have appearances to maintain.” Archer sighed. “You will be treated as a suspect.”

“A year ago, I would have told you that I have no feelings to hurt, but having become a follower of the Kir’Shara, let me merely tell you that I understand and accept your actions, whether they cause me discomfort or not.”

It seemed to Archer that the Vulcan smiled slightly. He was too worried about catching the murderer to give this fact the attention it deserved. He filed it away under unusual things that had happened that day, a large mental file to be sure.

“Sergeant,” Archer said to the imposing MACO standing by the door, “send Reed in on your way out.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Soval, I know you’re in a terrible position as a diplomat,” Archer said as they both rose to their feet. “If negotiations were to fail now, everyone would understand.”

“Typical, Captain, another of your attempts at reverse psychology. Your father often did the same when he wished for me or the Vulcan High Command to change our stance on something.”

After Soval and his escort had walked out, Archer reflected that he hadn’t known that about his father.

Reed strode in with his hands clasped behind his back. He was frowning harder than usual. Oddly, he also seemed to be blushing.

“Something wrong, Malcolm?”

“Murder, sir.”

“Malcolm. Malcolm, Malcolm, you’re blushing.”

“A personal matter, sir. Uninvolved.”

“Glad to hear it,” Archer said, as he sank into his chair and ran his hand over his wet brow. “Did you find anything in your preliminary search of the crime scene?”

“I found almost nothing of any consequence sir. No finger-prints that shouldn’t have been there, no genetic material from anyone who wasn’t known to be in the room already—the members of both delegations, Hoshi, who was there in case they needed clarification that the universal translator couldn’t give them, and of course everyone who entered the room afterwards—that being you, myself, six MACO’s and Phlox.”

“Dammit, I was afraid of that. One of the Trill?”

Reed nodded. “Sir, you wouldn’t earnestly suspect Ensign Sato or Sov—Ambassador Soval?”

“No, I can’t believe that. And Detmer certainly didn’t stab himself twice in the carotid artery.”

“Certainly not.”

“Murder weapon?”

“Unaccounted for. Long and thin and pointed, like a stiletto, or so it seemed to me from the wounds. Phlox is scanning the—”

“’Unaccounted for.’ I don’t understand. All of them were searched immediately, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir. I scanned them all myself. Nothing even remotely like the weapon, and it could be a lot of things, so we were very thorough.”

“I don’t understand it. I assume the ship is being searched?”

“Yes, sir. I would appreciate any extra man-power.”

“You have it, effective immediately.”

* * * * * * *

Three adjoining staterooms had been placed under guard for the diplomats. Reed mentally thanked the stars that neither Vulcans nor Trill had any concept of diplomatic immunity. He hesitated in the corridor, then, very conscious of the MAKO looking at him, stepped into the first of the three rooms. In it, Varell was sitting alone at a large conference table.

“Mr. Ambassador,” Reed said, in a clipped tone.

“Mr. Reed,” Varell said, in almost the same tone. The Trill barely looked up.

“You know you’re perfectly free to join your delegation in the next room, sir.”

“To what end?” Varell was flippant.

“If you… er… wanted to.” Reed felt very awkward, especially considering that, to his eyes, the Trill was in a state of comparative undress and… oddly attractive.

“I do not.”

“The Captain sent me to ask if your delegation wants food or any reading materials, anything like that.”

“I don’t know about your species, but mine tend to lose our appetite when a murder has been committed. It is rather a serious crime among us.”

“Among us as well. Shortly I’ll be back to ask you some questions.”

Varell looked down. “As is only natural.”

Reed walked through into the adjoining room, feeling greasy in his stomach. It was a similar room with an identical conference table. Around one end, he was quite surprised to find the remaining members of the human delegation playing cards with the other spotted Trill, whom he had perceived as painfully shy. She seemed to be winning, though he could not quite place what game they were playing.

“Poignee,” she said, louder than he could have pictured her speaking, as she laid down a handful of unusual looking card from her hand.

One of the human diplomatic aides stood uneasily; he had been nervously toying with his cards. He was a thin, indistinct middle-aged man in a nice suit.

“Is Detmer…?”

“I’m afraid so. He would have lost consciousness before the lights were even back on. There was nothing our doctors could’ve done.”

Tears came to the man’s eyes, and the woman sitting next to him drew a sharp breath. For several seconds he said nothing. “My god. I’ve known him five years. He can’t be…”

“These things are hard, Ambassador. You have my condolences.”

The man collapsed into his chair.

“May I ask you some questions, or do you need some time?”

“Of course, of course,” the man said, wiping his eyes. “I want to help in any way I..” he trailed off.

Reed helped him back up and they walked out into the corridor.

“Can you think of any reason someone might have for killing Ambassador Detmer?”

The man rubbed his balding head. “A… few, I guess? Nothing, uh…” he sighed, and looked bewildered. “…compelling. Nothing compelling.”

“Yes?”

“The ambassador from the True Trill seems hostile.”

“He was reasonable enough a moment ago… but you’re right.”

“Well, more than that, were you aware there was a very vocal argument between the head of the Vulcan delegation and Mr. Detmer while we were briefing Archer?”

“I was.”

“It was just the tip of the iceberg.”

Reed sighed and looked at the MAKO standing next to the door, who seemed not to be paying attention. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“Tensions were high on the Vulcan transport. Listen, it’s all very complicated stuff; apparently the Vulcan ambassador is a member of a new Vulcan religion, or rather an old one that’s just been revived.”

“Something like that. I was there when it was.”

“Well, you know about Vulcans, right? They have to suppress their emotions or they become like the eugenic supermen of our world—id-driven and megalomaniacal.”

Reed raised an eyebrow. “Something… like that…”

“Well this new religion says not to suppress them, but to learn how to control them and live with them. There were some moments on that ship…”

“Can you be more specific?” Reed said.

“Knowing what I know about Vulcans, there were some alarming moments. When a Vulcan raises his voice, it’s rather serious, you know. Well, Soval actually yelled at Detmer when he revealed the Earth policy on the Trill negotiations.”

“Soval? Yelled?”

“He said…” here the aide raised his voice somewhat, but certainly not to a full shout. “’This is irritating.’”

“Mr. Ambassador,” Reed said. “If we were talking about a human, you realize…”

“How absurd this sounds? No, it was not loud and it was not obscene, but you should have seen the other _Vulcans._ For about ten seconds after that, you could have heard a molecule hit the deck.”

“Well, I’ll certainly take this information under consideration. Do you have anything else?”

“We know next to nothing about the other Trills.”

“Indeed. Well, that will be all for now. I’m going to question everyone in as short a time as possible, while it’s all fresh, you know. Thank you.”

Next Reed summoned the Trill woman out into the corridor.

“Your name, please?” he said.

“Ae.”

“Aye, what is it?” he said.

“My name is… my name is Ae, sir.”

“Forgive my confusion.”

She managed to smile. “Of course.”

“Just the one name?”

“Mostly only the Vatesh have more than one name, sir. It’s a sign of noble status.”

“I see. You _really_ don’t have to call me ‘sir,’ Ambassador.”

“I get so used to dealing with the Vatesh. You see, I’m the lieutenant governor of the Trill Karam, the second-largest country on our world, where my race originated. We survive only by submitting to the Trill Vatesh in all foreign matters.”

“Vatesh. That’s ‘True,’ isn’t it?”

“Yes. The True Trill.”

“Are they a country or a race?”

“Both.”

A chill ran down Reed’s spine. He tried to think of the word for that kind of arrangement. “But they look like you.”

“They evolved from us. They are superior in lifespan, claim to be superior in intelligence, and have superior immunity to most common diseases.”

“Sounds like genetic augmentation.”

“Impossible!” Ae said, as if the idea was repulsive. That, at least, Reed thought he understood.

“Do tell.”

“Our genetic material is delicate and cannot be altered. Tumors and death are invariably the result.”

“It can’t be done?”

“The Vatesh have tried several dozen times in the last century. The result is always death. I don’t really know what deficiency they have that they could be trying to correct.”

“It has been my species experience,” Reed said, speaking from personal experience, “that it is always possible to want more in that area.”

“Very likely, sir—oh, I’m sorry, I’ve done it again.”

“The other races. Are they also dominated absolutely by the Vatesh?”

“Yes. I mean, the Treelóbja are not officially subjects—those are the ones with the feet, you know—but their government is almost as bad as the Vatesh. They pay tribute of slaves to maintain some independence.”

“That’s terrible.”

“You see why my people are clamoring for some kind of treaty with the outside?”

“Yes, and I’m inclined to think you wouldn’t jeopardize that. Who would, of the people at that table?”

The woman sighed. “Even Solim Varell has only to gain by the talks continuing. He wants to make sure only the Vatesh benefit, of course.”

“And he is open about it?” Reed said. He raised an eyebrow.

“He doesn’t view us of enough of a threat to keep his mouth closed in our presence. We’ve actually learned a lot about the secret politics of the Vatesh from him. He’s the worst liaison officer they’ve ever had in that regard, Mr. Reed.” She laughed harshly.

That didn’t sound like the man Reed had spoken with, proud and tight-lipped, but he thought the different power dynamic here might explain it. “Does Detmer stand in his way? Does he see someone else as being easier to manipulate?”

“I do not know. It would be a gamble if he really murdered someone just to have a different negotiator.”

“Too much of a gamble?”

“Yes, I think so. He’s… actually quite insecure. He runs his mouth when there are underlings to impress, acts all proud like a stage villain when there are peers about, but one-on-one? Almost humble, for a member of the Vatesh nobility.”

“Are we talking about the same person?”

She laughed again, hoarsely. “Let me tell you this… he’s young by their standards. He’s a year younger than me, which is mid-adulthood for us but adolescent for them.”

“Impulsive? Hormonal?”

“Perhaps ‘adolescent’ wasn’t the word. Forgive me. He is physically an adult, but with next to no experience, beyond these last three years as liaison officer. He got the job from a powerful relative, I think, a father or an uncle. His own kind don’t… you know, respect him yet.”

“Do your people think he could be brought around to your side?”

“If any of them could, but I doubt it.”

Reed rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Tell me about the other Trill ambassadors.”

“As suspects? I don’t suppose they’re any different from me in that respect. Of course we all secretly hate the Vatesh, and the Trill Karam and the T’reil Bachtar had the Treelóbja for dealing in slaves, as I explained.”

“Amazing; you’re really amazing, Ae.”

“Is this really appropriate, Mr. Reed?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “You’re a natural detective, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I was a legal inquisitor for four years before being elected Lieutenant governor. I’ve done your job numerous times.”

“As bad as this?”

“Far worse. Any more questions? You have my full cooperation.”

“I want to question everyone while the events are fresh. I’ll be back later.”

She nodded.

* * *

Reed stepped into the Ready Room.

“Well?”

“I’ve interviewed everyone who was in the room. The Vatesh ambassador was cooperative but not forthcoming, the Karam ambassador was forthcoming but knew very little about the crime, the other ambassadors said less, the humans are clueless and the Vulcans are all trying very hard to get me to focus on Soval.”

“Malcolm, can I trust you?”

Reed looked slightly hurt. “Aye, sir, I’d like to think that you can trust me implicitly.”

“Malcolm, Soval told me that he would shortly lose his job and be in danger. I think you know why.”

“A melder and a Syrranite, aye. I’ve read reports on political violence on Vulcan in the last six months. ‘Logic Extremists,’ they’re called. Anti-Syrran and strongly anti-melder. It’s rather alarming, sir.”

“You like the Vulcans, don’t you, Malcolm?”

Reed raised an eyebrow. “I find them a little insufferable, of course, but their culture does have its appeal. I rather like the Stoic philosophers in school; imagine a whole world of them.”

“Well, that’s the core of the problem, I think. Look how serious humans take conflicts of ideology, even ones that have no bearing on their daily lives. Now imagine a race of _philosophers._ You’ve known career academics.”

“Aye, sir, I have at that.”

“I think it’s save to say that we’ll either see Vulcan tear itself apart soon, or… something wonderful.”

“I have hope for the latter, sir.”

“So do I, now that it comes to it. T’Pol seems to have come around to Syrran’s teaching.”

“And Soval. I think about thirty percent of their population have positive feelings about Syrran now, according to surveys, sir.[11]”

“I didn’t know you were keeping such a close eye on Vulcan, Malcolm. No, no, that’s excellent, especially now that it’s so relevant.”

“Sir.”

“What’s your next line of attack?”

“Cross-examine the Vulcans, sir?”

“That’ll be tough, Malcolm. Cross-examine everyone, but especially them. Do what you have to.”

* * * *

  
  


In the new sickbay, Phlox was making a model of the murder weapon. The new 3d printer was layering more and more surgical plastic onto the object which was growing in the claw of the printer’s robotic arm.

Reed stared at it, almost slack-jawed. “That’s fascinating, Doctor.”

“Come now, your species has possessed this technology for some time.[12]”

“Yeah, off in factories and things. I’ve just… never seen it in person.”

“Well, Mr. Reed, this is how they make your shirts, the frame and internal components of your pistol, your dishes and virtually everything other solid component of everything you interact with.”

“How do you determine what shape the weapon was?”

“The computer did, based on a Denobulan forensics program I had sent here by Starfleet. Bone nicks, muscle contusions, so forth.”

“Admissible in court on Denobula?”

“And on Earth. The foundational techniques are yours, dating back to late last century. ‘On Forensic Anthropology,’ Dr. Temperance J. Brennan[13], et cetera.”

“Huh.”

Finally, the machine dinged. Phlox stepped up and took out the long, slightly curving spine it had built. It tapered to a nasty point and had a slightly organic look to it. Reed turned it over and over in his hand.

“Notice the hollow tip, Doctor. Do you have hypodermics this size?”

“I no longer have any needles of any size. They’re quite obsolete. Even when I had some, this would dwarf my largest intramuscular needle. A barbaric implement!”

“May I keep this?”

“Of course! Why else would I have it made?”

  
  


Meanwhile, in the guarded staterooms, three of the Trill were arguing in hushed tones.

Varell was furious. “And I’m really supposed to believe that you told this man nothing of our biology?”

“Calm down, Solim,” Ae said, with no deference whatsoever. “I said that you’re an evolution of my race, which could almost be true. Nothing more, and certainly nothing of the specifics.”

“If we’re finally talking biology,” the Treelóbja said, leaning in, “what _are_ the specifics, if I might?”

“You might _not,”_ Varell snapped. “Surely your government knows everything.”

“Well _I_ do not, and it bothers me that you and this Karam bitch would discuss it in front of me.”

Varell did not even look over at Ae. “Know your place, frog.”

“And what’s _my_ place, Solim? In your bed only?”

“I did not design our society, Ae! As for you,” he said to the one with webbed feet, cooling down a bit, “Of course there’s more to it than you’ve been told. We’re politicians and we follow strict orders for a living. You don’t think I would tell you, my closest friend, if I were allowed to, you fat slaver?”

“You told her,” the other man said. “And if I am your closest friend I pity you.”

“I was allowed and instructed to. If they justified that decision to me, I would now justify it to you. However, they did not! And hear this, Besuki: nothing makes me happier than to speak as peers behind closed doors. But insult Lady Ae again and I will strike you hard enough to burst your membranes[14].”

“Now, who,” Besuki said, “is that supposed to impress?”

“I speak not to impress—” he said.

He was interrupted by the lights going out and the sound of the transformers losing power.

When the lights came up, Besuki was gone.

“I—” Varell began, loudly.

“Clearly,” Ae muttered. “But you’re going to be the humans’ suspect number one.”

* * *

“Unbelievable!” Archer looked back and forth from Phlox to Reed, who were standing in front of his chair on the bridge. Reed regarded him earnestly. Archer could see that the Lieutenant was trying to look collected, but he could see a babe-in-the-woods look in his eyes.

“Luckily, we do know one thing, sir. I planted sensor boxes in each room. Really, we should have internal sensors of this type in all the bulkheads already, but I couldn’t get it in the construction budget.”

“I was the one who overruled you. I’m sorry. You found something?”

“Ambassador Besuki was beamed out by a transporter of unknown specifications. Not ours.”

“Malcolm, you’re telling me we have an assailant who stabs one man in the neck and beams another away…?”

“I would, however, imagine that they might have beamed in to commit the stabbing, sir.”

“Ugh… there goes our tight, simple locked-room mystery, Malcolm.”

“I hadn’t thought of it in those terms, sir.”

“Was it,” Archer asked, leaning back in the captain’s chair, “a cloaked ship? The space station?”

“I don’t think so, sir, but anything’s possible.”

“Explain.”

“It was a very-low energy transport. None of our transporters could operate at that energy level.”

“Is that why they couldn’t see it in the dark?”

“Yes, sir. I don’t think they could have transported very far with that little power, but we’ll have to ask Commander Tucker.”

“Could it be done with human technology?”

“Almost certainly not, sir. It’d be on the same level as a warp five shuttlepod.”

“So about a year away?[15]”

Reed raised an eyebrow. “Not unless you know something I don’t.”

Archer looked at him earnestly. “I do. Could Section 31 possess this technology?”

“That’s a good question, sir. Why would they interfere in these negotiations?”

“That’s a good question, Malcolm.”

* * *

“Impossible, Malcolm,” Commander Tucker said, putting down his beer and zipping his coveralls back up.

Reed came and sat down on the bed next to him. “Why?”

“You’re asking me to break basic rules of sub-quantum physics. Classical mechanics I can break before lunch, and I’ve violated uncertainty twice this week, but listen, Malcolm, what you’re asking for? Godlike engineering. I don’t think anyone can do it.”

“Assume someone did.”

“Gimme a headache, but I’ll try.”

“Now tell me about that species. What are the precursors, Trip?”

“Malcolm, as a bare minimum, they’d be able to time travel, create vast megastructures and break the Warp 8 barrier.”

“To create a portable, low-energy transporter?”

“I mean they would develop all those things before it, and I figure, if you can time travel conveniently, you have potential access to arbitrary levels of technology. You’d be able to go to the future and steal it, or back to see the Great Ones who gave warp technology to the Vulcans, to the same effect. As for developing it independently? It’d be centuries ahead for us, if ever. Thems the breaks.”

Reed accepted a lite beer from Tucker, and cracked it open. “Why is it so difficult?”

“So you’re gonna get broken down into molecules and get sent through a microscopic forcefield, possibly after being converted into energy, a forcefield long enough for you to get you to wherever you’re going and small enough to pass through matter, yet wide enough to let you pass through in a reasonable amount of time, with enough energy left over to funnel you back into your proper shape when you get there. You want this to run on Alkali, or Wein Cell?”

“Are those forms of fission battery?”

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t human or Trill.”

“Vulcans?”

“A century or more, knowing their tech.”

Reed sipped the flavorless beer. “Who are the most advanced race in known space?”

“Advanced how? The Vulcans are in the process of breaking Warp 8, the Denobulans once opened a wormhole for 48 minutes, and the Andorians have good theory on gravity-based time travel. None of them had transporters before _us,_ and it ain’t catching on with most of them from what I hear. No one in known space has revealed to us practical sub-quantum computing, that that’s really what this comes down to.”

“Are you telling me we’re dealing with an outside-context problem?”

“Yeah. God, I hated that novel.”

“So we wait?”

“I dunno. I guess the Captain will come up with one of his… plans.”

“T’Pol might be able to tell us more.”

Reed made his way anxiously to T’Pol’s quarters. They were off to themselves away from most of the crew, in the science area. Reed felt that, of all the bridge crew, she was the one he knew the least. He had been to her quarters twice and never more than one pace inside the door. He found her very androgynous and was almost attracted—perhaps the only woman he’d ever really found interesting in that way, if only a little. He stood outside and waited for her to come to the door.

She never did. After a minute, Reed wired up to the bridge in a panic. “Reed to Hoshi. Can you locate T’Pol?”

There was a moment’s silence. “No!”

“Is she on the Trill station?”

“There’ve been armed guards at the airlock!”

“She might have been beamed off. Alert the captain and go to Tactical Alert.”

“Tactical alert, aye. Hoshi to Captain Archer. T’Pol is missing from the ship.”

Reed heard Archer swear hard on the other end of the intercom.

Reed cursed the fact that, try as he might, he hadn’t managed to set up a foolproof system for alerting the crew when someone went missing from the ship.

* * *

In the main conference room, the remaining senior officers had gathered. It seemed that both Tucker and T’Pol had disappeared between Reed leaving Tucker’s quarters and arriving at T’Pol’s, an interval of about three minutes.

Colonel Yoshikawa[16] looked solemn and angry in the new dark grey MACO uniform with its high protective collar, while Lieutenant McGee, duty engineer of the night shift, had apparently just been woken up, and she sipper her coffee with dull eyes. Yoshikawa tented his hands in front of his face with his elbows on the table.

“So,” Yoshikawa said through his hands. “Would you care to take tea with the suspects again, or shall I question them?”

“I don’t like the implication, _Colonel,”_ Reed said.

“Enough, both of you,” Archer snapped. “Go together; question the remaining Trill again with all this new information in hand. You two are dismissed. McGee, sever all umbilicals and charge the hull plating. I don’t want any more beamouts.”

* * *

Late in their interrogation of Varell, Yoshikawa and Reed were at a loss. “So, tell me about your planet’s level of technology, Ambassador.” Reed said. He was sitting at a table in the security suite, facing Varell.

Varell raised an eyebrow.

Yoshikawa, standing with his arms behind him near the wall, said “So, tell me about your planet’s level of technology, _Ambassador._ ” His tone was icy.

“What do you want to know?”

“Transporter technology. How advanced is yours?” Reed asked.

“We have cargo translation matrices that are fatal or damaging to life, nothing more. Honestly, Mr. Reed, we were shocked to discover that not only did you invent the technology yourselves so early in your development, you have also quickly and uncritically accepted it as part of your lifestyles.”

“I wonder myself,” Yoshikawa said.

“I had my doubts, but after the first ten or twenty times… I’m still here, at any rate.”

“So,” Yoshikawa said. “Your species’ possessing a low-energy, silent and invisible transporter…”

“Is absurd. Do you have such a thing?”

“I ask the questions, Ambassador,” Yoshikawa said.

Reed craned his neck to look at the Colonel. “No, we don’t.”

Yoshikawa looked at Reed as if to say “come on.” “Do you trade with any species who would?”

Varell shrugged. “The Kobheerians?”

Reed shook his head.

“No, I didn’t think so.”

* * *

Soval was more informative, once the right questions were finally being asked.

“The technology you speak of,” he said at last, “is not known to us specifically, but the Vulcan Science Directorate recognizes at least three Type 6 civilizations, any of which could plausibly possess it.”

“Type 6?” Yoshikawa asked.

“We classify civilizations according to the V’Katis scale,” Soval said.

“Is that like our Kardaschev scale?” Yoshikawa asked.

“Similar, but more nuanced and focusing less strictly on energy consumption. I imagine they scale to each other linearly, however. On this scale, your individual civilization is a high type 4, the Andorians are a low type 5, ours is a middling 5, and several species we have had intermittent contact with in Beta quadrant are high type 5’s. Are you aware of the Romulan Star Empire? They’re a belligerent race who have perfected the warp 8 engine, according to our agents.”

“And type 6?”

“A usable definition is that a type 6 civilization would present an existential threat to multiple type 5 civilizations at once.”

“In war?”

“Yes, but eventually, by existing, unless they controlled their population to prevent the need for expansion.”

Yoshikawa appeared to consider this for several seconds. “So a species that could colonize you.”

“We hope to forestall this by continuing to advance to a higher ourselves.”

“And where does that leave us, Mr. Ambassador? Obsolete?” Yoshikawa said, harshly.

Reed buried his face in his hands.

“You misunderstand,” Soval said, with an intake of breath that sounded almost like a sigh. “When I say ‘civilization,’ it is not at all what is suggested by your word, from the Latin ‘civitas, civitatis,’ meaning _‘city.’_ It is ‘V’Boris,’ from the same ancient root as our word for ecosystem. It refers to a connected system of peoples or cities or star systems, connected by _interdependency._ A civilization needn’t be one culture, one species, even one political body. Understand me, Colonel, when I said ‘our civilization,’ I used the inclusive ‘we;’ the civilization of Vulcans, humans, and all our dependents and close allies. As reckless as I find you, I must admit that neither of us are self-contained peoples any longer. When I called you a type 4 civilization, it was shorthand for ‘you, if you were suddenly without the rest of us.’ Let us hope that never happens.”

“For our sake?” Yoshikawa said.

“For the sake of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.”

“Wait just a damn minute,” Yoshikawa said. He was clearly still processing what Soval had said.

“No, I understand,” Reed said, the first time he had spoken in the interview. “You mean that without each other, our peoples would _each_ be less.” For the first time that day, he made eye contact with Soval. His fingers were intertwined.

Soval nodded, almost seemed to smile. “This is axiomatic.”

Yoshikawa rolled his eyes. “So you were telling us,” he said, pointedly, “about the type 6 civilizations you had contacted?”

“When I said ‘we’ it was the inclusive ‘we’ in that instance as well, Colonel. You yourself have contacted the most advanced technological species known to the Vulcan Science Directorate.”

Reed looked once again into the wide-set, dark eyes of the Vulcan opposite him. _“What?”_

“The cybernetic beings that attempted to take over your ship with their technology.”

Reed had to repeat his question. _“What?”_

“They had access to the most powerful technology we have conceived of, the total conversion of matter to energy at the nano-scale.”

Reed touched his hair, which was like shellac. He had put too much gel in it this morning. “Well, yes, I suppose that tracks. Yoshikawa, do you…” He trailed off. “My _God,_ I know what’s going on.”

Yoshikawa smirked. “I doubt it.”

Reed glared at him, then ran out of the room.

He arrived at sickbay after an agonizing turbolift ride and another sustained sprint down the corridors of the secondary hull. He was panting when he walked through the new automatic double doors, which got out of his way before he reached them.

He found Phlox with his back turned, trimming a monstrous, orchid-like plant he had recently acquired. Reed was seeing black, in an absolute state of panic. If he was wrong…

He whipped out his phase pistol, set it instantly to stun, and said “sorry, doctor,” as he fired.

Reed could not believe his eyes when a small shield appeared to block his beam. Phlox wheeled around. There was a blank look in his eyes and an odd, inhuman will to his movements. As Reed watched, something burst through the skin of the doctor’s face, then split open. It was metallic, flower like and appeared razor-sharp.

Reed felt his hands move in trained patterns without his conscious intervention, even without his full consent. One hand flew to brace the other’s wrist, as the first set the phase pistol to kill. Again, the beam died on the shield, though it appeared to increase the energy required to block it. Phlox moved towards him like a shambling zombie. Reed’s thumb set the gun to its top setting: total disintegration. He fired.

There was a flash, as of a ship’s shields being overwhelmed in a haze of torpedoes. Phlox’s arms flung out from him like a man being crucified. He slowly fell backwards and hit the ground with a sick, quiet thud.

TO BE CONTINUED.

NOTES:

So, to be clear, literally NOTHING about "These Are the Voyages" happened in this fic's continuity--not any of the events, not those terrible uniforms, NOTHING. That would have been year six of the mission IIRC, and events in this fic would certainly contradict that--not all of the players would be in the right position. Like, basically Riker's holodeck program is full of shit, an ahistorical piece of nonsense cobbled together by the computer in about five minutes sometime during "Pegasus." 

[1]The Enterprise refit is not my idea... there are a number of semi-official and unofficial renderings of the Constitution-like refit described here, and Doug Drexler intended for it to become canon in season 5. 

[2]Archer begins reading Lord of Light exactly one week after finishing it--this is about his fifth or sixth time through. Before that he read "Left Hand of Darkness" like six times. This is what he does for comfort, the way Tucker watches "Fantastic Mr. Fox."

[3] This, if it wasn't clear in the show (or if you didn't watch that part of the show, is the same person that both officiates Spock's wedding/Koon-ut-khalifee and later performs the Fal-Tor-Pan on Spock to restore his Katra after the events on and around the Genesis World. She's also as insufferable as a young adult on Enterprise as she was as an elderly Vulcan on TOS and especially in the TOS novels.

[4] Detmer is not being charitable. Vulcans did not solely ally with the US, but it is common knowledge that they met in secret with President Barber (Green Party) less than seventy-two hours after first contact, while their secret meetings in the Hague are not particularly well-known and aren't mentioned in most textbooks. He does know this and is really not a nice person. As far as his relationship with Soval, he's not much further along than Archer in season one, except he uses fewer but worse slurs.

[5] Bernal, John Desmond (1929) "The World, The Flesh and the Devil"<br />  
(Archer was a tankie in college and read some pretty obscure Marxist-Leninist and ML-adjacent writers at the time. Bernal was in favor of the Soviet quack scientist Lysenko, hence his representation in Archer's reading list.)

[6] The Kohbheerians are still a non-Federation pain in everyone's ass by the time of DS9 almost two centuries later. 

[7] This man is of the species of Trill Host seen in "The Host" (TNG)

[8] This one is the large-footed species that was one of the Dax hosts, as seen (I purport) in Star Trek VI. "If shoe fits... wear it."

[9] Read this in your best Andy Griffith impression.

[10] Already in the process of becoming the short-lived "Starfleet Marine Corps," to be folded into the general Starfleet corps within the next seven years, with a few holdouts in terms of command structure up until the late 2200's--for instance, there are still specific offices whose holders are called "colonels" in Starfleet Security by 2293, as well as a few other individual positions that maintain Army-style titles, while in the same chain of command as ordinary naval-style ranks. This was done away with in the revised uniform code of 2302. 

[11] Weeb.

[12] Note that a lot of advanced technology became difficult to produce after WWIII. We in 2021 would not blink twice at seeing a basic 3d printer such as this--my grandfather had access to a laser and liquid-thermoset-based rapid prototyping machine as early as 2005, and as early as 2015 I knew a rich girl who built 3d printers from kits as her main hobby--and a kingly hobby at that. 

[13] The show, not the books, happened in this continuity. And yes, that does mean that Cindi Lauper does not exist in this universe. Will I likely contradict this later? Sure. 

[14] Not that he would have to hit him hard. Their life expectancy is 25 years, and like the Ferengi they have extremely large, sensitive and vulnerable tympanic membranes that are often the organ that kills them. 

[15] As you will see, Archer is embodying the quote about cyberspace: "[...]what I thought was twenty years away was five years away, and what I thought was five years away... was already here."

[16] Yoshikawa is Hayes' replacement, after a rather long period where Reed had to do the paperwork for that office while getting none of the privileges.


	2. Hosts (Episode 5x02)

_LAST TIME ON STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE:_

Reed could not believe his eyes when a small shield appeared to block his beam. Phlox wheeled around. There was a blank look in his eyes and an odd, inhuman will to his movements. As Reed watched, something burst through the skin of the doctor's face, then split open. It was metallic, flower like and appeared razor-sharp.

Reed felt his hands move in trained patterns without his conscious intervention, even without his full consent. One hand flew to brace the other's wrist, as the first set the phase pistol to kill. Again, the beam died on the shield, though it appeared to increase the energy required to block it. Phlox moved towards him like a shambling zombie. Reed's thumb set the gun to its top setting: total disintegration. He fired.

There was a flash, as of a ship's shields being overwhelmed in a haze of torpedoes. Phlox's arms flung out from him like a man being crucified. He slowly fell backwards and hit the ground with a sick, quiet thud.

_AND NOW THE CONCLUSION:_

Reed lowered his phaser and put the safety on. “God,” he said. He was sure he’d killed Phlox. Suddenly another sick thought went his mind, compounding the feeling of horror that filled him: _what if I killed Phlox but not the thing inside him._

He put that aside and, working quickly, found a powerful paralytic agent and estimated the dosage based on ten-year-old basic emergency medical training. He crept up to Phlox’s body on his knees, hesitated, and finally put the hypodermic sprayer to Phlox’s carotid and pulled the trigger. He dropped the injector on the ground and felt the artery. Feeling a pulse, he breathed a massive sigh of relief.

“Reed to Bridge. Phlox has been taken over by a hostile entity! Emergency medical personnel to the sickbay! Security to sickbay!”

Yoshikawa was first on the scene. He walked through the door, seemingly calm, but Reed knew that he must have sprinted most of the way. “What’s going on?”

“He was infected by the cybernetic lifeforms. We thought his immune system had fought them off.”

Yoshikawa recoiled. “We didn’t think to make sure?”

“If those things can reproduce from a single nanite… I don’t know how we would.”

As they watched, nurses and Dr. Chilton scrambled in and loaded the unconscious doctor into the scanning tube.

Finally, Archer stepped in. “What’s going on here, Malcolm?”

“It’s an emergency, sir. We have to quarantine this ship immediately and get away from the station. There may be other hostiles on board!”

***

_It’s been a long road…_

***

The King of the Trill was on the main viewer. “What do you mean? This is nonsense!” he was yelling. He was just a boy, sitting in robes that looked like silk, with a large red gem attached to his forehead somehow. Like Varell, he appeared human, but had spots or tattoos running down the sides of his face and neck.

“Unforeseen cirumstances, your Majesty,” Archer said, flatly. “We have an advanced, intelligent disease on board, and it must be contained. Your station may be contaminated if we don’t leave now. If your station is contaminated it must not spread to the surface. Your Majesty, we must act together to quarantine both. We will back off to several hundred kilometers from the station and attempt to find a solution. I suggest you send your top medical scientists to the station and let no one leave.”

“An outrage!” the thirteen or fourteen-year-old Trill Vatesh on the screen yelled, his voice cracking.

Archer sighed, straightened his uniform, and said “Archer, out.”

 _I shouldn’t have done that,_ he thought.

He turned to address the night-shift bridge crew. “I know this is stressful, but the problem is worse than we thought. We will remain at tactical alert until further notice. When McGee goes off duty we won’t have an acting chief engineer on deck. At that time, I will address all pressing engineering concerns myself.”

“You, sir?” Reed asked.

“Taught by the best. Let’s hope I remember some of it. Now, Travis, let’s see if we can back out. Thrusters only this time. There needs to be a rule about that.”

Travis was visibly shaking. “Aye, sir. Clearing moorings and going to minimum thrusters astern aye. Port and starboard thrusters to stationkeeping. Seven hundred meters from entrance.”

“Stern cameras onscreen,” Archer said.

The main viewer showed a huge round aperture growing as the ship slowly moved backwards towards it. In the opening was the blackness of space, the Trill homeworld in the distance, and a few scattered stars.

“Go to three quarters astern, Travis.”

“All astern three quarters, aye.”

Reed mopped his brow. “This is going to be tight.”

“Just like backing a boat down a ramp,” Archer said.

“I’ve never done that, Cap’n,”[1] Travis said. His hands were tight on the manual yoke.

But as they watched, Travis precariously brought the Enterprise out the aperture with less than six meters clearance on each side of the saucer section.

As soon as the ship was out in clear space, the comms officer said “the royal palace is hailing again…” he trailed off as he saw the look on Archer’s face.

“Alright, Wolowitz, transmit a distress call to Starfleet, inform them we’re under quarantine. I’ll be in my ready room.”

Archer got to his desk and buried his face in his hands. He hit the intercom. “Hail the station, ask them to scan for our missing people. No, wait. We have better sensors; just… just scan it directly.”

Reed revisited Soval, who had been sitting in the interrogation room since Reed and Yoshikawa had been called away. Reed apologized awkwardly for the wait.

“Well,” he said at last. “I suppose you’re absolutely clear now, sir.”

“Yes,” Soval said, as impenetrably as ever.

“I’ve been informed, ambassador, that you’ve applied for asylum from Vulcan. The Cap’n says it’s been conditionally accepted.”

“On what condition?”

“As you are the first Vulcan ever to do so, well, ambassador… it seems that you are now wanted by the High command. The United Earth Government will guarantee you protection on any planet or other territory, with the exception of territories with a Vulcan embassy.”

“What?” Soval said, a little more loudly, seeming to show real emotion for only the second time in Reed’s experience.

Reed sighed. “Nearly all of them.”

“Precisely all of them, Mr. Reed. Every sanctioned colony has an official Vulcan presence.”

“The Cap’n seems to think… you might want to stay on _Enterprise._ You would have a position as an observer and advisor… if we survive current events, that is.”

“Mr. Reed, I do not know that it matters much where I spend my exile.”

“I sympathise, sir.” Reed turned and left, feeling like he hadn’t been very smooth.

* * *

Dr. Chilton furrowed her brow as she surveyed the two transparent printouts, which she was holding above her next to one of the fluorescent lights in the new open-plan sickbay. They showed concentrations of nanomachines in Phlox’s body. She was a small, middle-aged woman with short, professional hair, wearing the new medical uniform of shirt, trousers and Starfleet-blue labcoat. Reed looked at her anxiously.

“Bad?” he asked.

“ _Of course it’s bad._ It’s one of the most horrific infections I’ve ever seen. Not a millimeter of his body is unaffected, from the outermost layers of skin to the glial layers of his neural clusters.”

“Neural clusters?”

“Neural clusters are what Denobulans have instead of brains.”

“He doesn’t have a brain?”

“He does, it’s just distributed and very redundant. Very tough possums, these. But it’s just not enough.”

“Possum?”

“A figure of speech. He was so resistant to the nanoprobes the first time—the Denobulan immune system makes us all look like invalids. It’s strongly linked to the higher nervous system. His unconscious mind would have actively and intelligently strategized in defeating any pathogen. Some of them are even consciously aware of their antibodies. When he was first infected three years ago, the nanites were unable to overwhelm his entire nervous system, and so they lost and he went into full remission. If only he’d stayed that way…”

“What changed?” Reed asked.

“You’ll laugh.”

Reed looked almost comically serious.

“He had a cold. It’s the first time he’s really been sick since then. His immune system was suppressed just enough… He’d literally filtered his blood through the infirmary bioreactor three times to try and purge those nanoprobes. Apparently a couple of dozen individual probes slipped through.”

“Will he rally?”

Chilton looked at him with a trace of exasperation. “Probably not. He’s in cellular stasis but it barely affects the probes. They have less to work with but they’re spreading. I give him a day, unless we come up with something better. He’s not pretty: more implants have formed and sprung out from—” She realized that Reed was turning green.

***

Hoshi came over the Ready Room intercom. “Scans of the Trill Space Platform came up negative, Captain.”

Archer rested his eyes and sighed deeply. “Can you scan the planet from here? They have to be close by.”

A frantic male voice was the next thing he heard. “It’s Lieutenant Sato sir. She just… faded out in front of me.”

“Are shields holding?”

There was a moment of silence, long enough for a man to run the length of the bridge twice. “Yes, sir. 110% normal power output, polarized inward.”

“They must be aboard the ship, then. We have to search it again. Send Yoshikawa to the Ready Room.”

“Aye, sir.”

***

Security teams swarmed through the ship for not even the second time in two days. The entire ship was searched in hours, except for certain engineering spaces that were too hot or too irradiated to enter. Again they found nothing. After rechecking some of the inter-deck spaces himself, Yoshikawa reported to the captain. “I have every reason to believe they’re off the ship, sir.”

“Impossible. And assuming it were, what do you propose? Search the station?” Archer’s voice said over the intercom. He sounded ruffled. “Easier said than done.”

“Nevertheless, Captain.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Colonel. I have every reason to believe they’re _on_ the ship.”

In the Ready Room, Archer was developing a headache. Assuming it were even possible to beam through shields, he was convinced that sensors would have detected the cybernetic life-forms by now. After all, the Trill Station was unshielded and made of nothing heavier than concrete and steel—practically transparent to the newest Bausch and Lomb sensors. Still, anything was possible, and he needed to keep all the bases covered.

He walked onto the bridge. “Hail the Trill Government again.”

No one on the bridge knew how, so he did it himself with a little trouble and some grumbling.

The King of Trill came on the screen. “Well?”

“At this point, your majesty, we have found nothing to rule out the idea that your station may be…”

“ _Infected?_ If it is, I’ll break you on the wheel.”[2]

Archer channeled not his father this time, but his mother. One time, Soval had stepped on Archer’s father’s dreams of flight pretty hard, and his mother had lit into him. “I am not a diplomat, so forgive me if this is not diplomatic.” Archer said at last, and then raised his voice and said what his mother had said to Soval. “ _Get over yourself.”_ He saw that the King was stunned, so he went on. “I am offering to help you. You need help. Moreover, it’s _my_ people that may have been beamed onto your station—”

“We need help,” the boy said, spitting copiously and hissing a little through oversized teeth “with a problem you gave us! How convenient for you! Leave my space, do not transport anyone to the Platform, and keep my nephew and his farmer friends! I don’t need your disease on my world; _Begone!”_

The signal ended not with the cessation of the signal, but with a real and calculated attempt to blow Enterprise’s comm circuits, a surge of directed microwave energy on the same frequency, resulting in a buildup in the receivers that the ship’s computer had to reroute into a main bridge breaker box, which promptly exploded, showering Archer with sparks.

“Travis, take us to Warp 2 out of the system. There are some decent-sized phase cannons on that station and I don’t want to find out if they’re big enough to hurt us.

“Why not Warp 5, Captain?”

“To show that we’re not scared. If I’m right, they have some business in their culture about saving face. _Shifgrethor._ [3] Also, if we lost confinement at Warp 5… there’s only one man that could save us from a warp core breach. And I'm not him.”

“Understood, Captain.”

They jumped past light speed. Time passed.

Travis fiddled with the controls. “Captain, did Trip really adjust the engines just for me?”

“Explain.”

“Remember how it used to pull to the left at warp?”

Archer thought back to the last time he’d taken the helm in an emergency. It had indeed pulled to port. He tried to remember what the imbalance had been. “There were some… hull patches stored in the port nacelle catwalk. It reduced the field efficiency on that side by about a tenth of a percent.”

“Yes sir, the ones that are in the new shuttlebay now.” Travis nodded, not looking back from the controls. “Well it took me a minute to notice it because I was so used to it before the refit. But she’s doing it again. More.”

Archer scratched his head. “That shouldn’t be possible, Travis.”

Travis shrugged, carefully, as his hands were both on the controls, compensating, in fact, for the drag. “I can’t figure it out either, Captain.”

“Archer to Reed.”

Reed’s voice sounded over the intercom. “Reed here, sir.”

“Have the catwalks been searched?”

“Which ones, sir?”

“The nacelle catwalks, Malcolm. Have you searched them?”

“Sir,” Reed said, tactfully. “the temperature in there should be… I don’t know what it is now, but it’s very hot.”

“We’re dealing with a powerful enemy, and we have reason to believe that they might be in there. We’ll drop out of warp in ten minutes and I want you ready to take a team in fire suits in there.”

“Is that safe?”

“If not, wait until the moment it is. And Malcolm?”

“Sir?”

“Make sure it’s the _port_ nacelle you go in.”

***

Reed clenched and unclenched his fists inside the massive insulated gloves. He was as nervous as he’d felt during the last few days of the Xindi Crisis. It was ironic, he though: _no personal attachments._ That was what he’d been taught, what he’d always told himself, and here he was, five years into his first major deployment and not only had he fraternized extensively, but he couldn’t even remember the moment that the rule—his father’s rule—had gone out the window. Among the missing people, there were several that were like family to him now. He had to resist the urge to say stupid things out loud in front of his men: “I’m coming for you” or “stay alive, dammit” or the like.

The room he and the assembled bulk of the MACOS and Starfleet Security – as many as were left – were gathered in was the nacelle ramp inside the port engine pylon. It was a wide corridor with a low ceiling and a plasma conduit running through the middle of it at waist height. At one end, it adjoined to a side room off of main engineering, and where the the two floors met at sharp angle, their respective gravity fields interacted in a way that made Reed woozy whenever he had to walk through it.

The moment the captain announced over the intercom that the ship had dropped out of warp, Reed put on the helmet of the fire suit, checked the seals, and tried the door himself. It was an imposing door, next to the place where the conduit ran into the wall: it was like a bank vault’s, with a huge crank-wheel in the center. When he opened it a crack, the wave of heat made itself felt _through_ the suit. He slammed it shut. His dosimeter showed a higher dose of gamma than he wanted to expose his men to as well—for him, after a less-than-charmed five years in space, a drop in the bucket, but not healthy, by any means.

“Captain,” Reed said, over the fire suit’s internal com, “it’ll be some time before we can enter, unless Trip can—“ he caught himself too late “—unless you or McGee can figure out a way to vent the heat, sir.”

Archer’s voice was loud and crackly in his ear. “We’re going to be out of warp for fifteen hours anyways. I can’t risk bringing the engines back online without a cold restart. I figure you can enter the catwalk in about an hour, unless I’ve misplaced a decimal pla--" His sentence ended abruptly.

“Captain?”

“Sir, the captain’s just vanished.”

“ _Dammit!”_ Reed thought for a moment, and then signaled the security forces to stand well clear. He opened the door just far enough to slip through and ran in pell-mell. The heat was overbearing, heating the air in the tank fast enough to make breathing immediately difficult. As he ran deeper into the nacelle, he found that he was running through the symptoms of heat stroke, again and again.’

But it was clear that the chamber was empty. No cyborgs or missing persons were in evidence.

  
  


***

  
  


Reed sat in the captain’s chair, without any relish. He was the only senior officer left. The captain’s chair felt huge and cold as he sat down. He looked around the nearly-empty bridge with a sad and anxious eye.

Yoshikawa looked at him expectantly.

“Bring me the Vulcan Ambassador, Minato,” Reed said, in a strange tone of voice. He hoped it came across as a power move.

The colonel bristled for a moment, then said “yes… yes, sir.”

Five minutes later, Soval arrived on the bridge.

“You called for me, Mr. Reed?”

“Consider yourself acting science officer.”

“I fail to understand.”

Reed fidgeted. “I once heard that a Vulcan primary student’s science education is better than an Earth PhD in physics.”

“That seems possible.”

“Well, the senior staff is missing and this is an emergency. Consider this your first act as a member of the crew.”

Soval hesitated. “I will help to the best of my abilities.”

***

Three hours passed after the last known abduction. Reed was in command and Soval had made a few discoveries. He had worked out the approximate range of the cyborg’s short-range transporter, shorter even than some of the conservative estimates McGee had made.

Additionally, Soval discovered that one of the human military officers, Yoshikawa, was going around behind him, keeping tabs on everything he did. In a rare moment of almost emotional intuition, he realized that Reed’s motivation for assigning him to be acting science officer had been suspect, and everyone but him had known it at once.

He wondered, however, what that motivation might be.

Meanwhile in the sickbay, Chilton was almost to the point of screaming, or taking shots from Phlox’s bottle of Cognac[4] that he kept in his office. She considered what she would say if she had to write his eulogy.

“A man,” she found herself muttering under her breath, “who dedicated himself to life in all its forms, for no other reason than for life’s sake.”

She suddenly had a thought. “Chilton to bridge.”

“Bridge here,” Reed said over the intercom.

“I need to speak to Ambassador Varell.”

“Why, doctor?”

“He may have the key to saving Phlox.”

“What, really? Of course! Go, go now!”

Chilton _ran_ to the conference rooms where the ambassadors were confined. Inside, she spoke frantically. “Which one of you is Varell?”

The female trill spoke. “He’s in the next room.”

She burst in to see the aristocrat sitting with his cape off and his head in his hands.

“Mr. Ambassador, I’m a doctor,” Chilton said, “and I need to ask you some questions. A life may be on the line.”

“On the…” he seemed catch the meaning after a moment. Without raising his head, he nodded.

“Is it true your species does not suffer from… most forms of illness?”

“Ugh,” he said. “Mostly just the one. You know the one.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Ambassador?”

“Vertically transmitted at a rate of 100%, mother to child…”

“That’s terrible.”

“Morality rate of 100%...”

“Wait, how does that…”

“And you and I… well, fellow sufferers, at least.”

She finally caught his meaning. “With respect, Ambassador, Phlox is in much worse a situation than either of us. If you want to feel sorry for yourself, could you do it in five minutes?”

Finally, he raised his head and began to explain, for the first time, the biology of the True Trill.

***

Finally, Chilton was done with her scans of Varell. He had grumbled but been very cooperative overall. He sat up from the bed in sickbay, rubbed his back and sighed.

She had her face deep in the viewer of the Denobulan microscope. She had very carefully taken a sample of the nanoprobes and placed it in a Petri with some of the antibodies she had taken from Varell.

“This is fascinating. They’re fighting the nanoprobes with some efficiency. I… they’re dying, but they’re taking a chunk of the nanoprobes with them.”

“Can you develop a cure from my blood, then?” Varell said, absently.

“I can slow it down long enough to work on one.”

“Well, I have a religion, you know. How much do you need?”

Chilton looked at him and tried to make sense of what he had said. “Thank you,” she said at last. “You’re wonderful.”

The man rubbed his spots. “I am not. Get it over with, will you?”

***

In the main conference room, Reed rubbed his hands and looked around the table. Yoshikawa was again steepling his fingers in front of his face. Soval sat upright and placid. Ensign Mayweather, Lieutenant Commander McGee and Dr. Chilton sat with matching expressions of fear. Each expected to be transported away at any second to be assimilated by the cyborg menace.

Reed began without preamble. “McGee, is there _anywhere,_ and I do mean _anywhere_ that the cyborgs could be hiding that we haven’t visually inspected?”

“Yes. They could be located in…” she counted on her fingers. “Thirty-two[5] different spaces between the inner and outer hull. Now, they would be jammed together pretty tight, but they could be inhabiting some or all of them.”

“Why weren’t they _searched,_ Lieutenant?” Reed snapped.

“No way to. They’re filled with argon and welded shut.”

“Can we transport in in EV suits?”

“If you know of a way to transport someone so they land safely in a gap of two feet between two six-inch-thick bulkheads, sure, Lieutenant.”

Reed had this image of his friends turning into those mechanical beasts, worming through a maze of ungodly machines in a space ten by ten by two. “Can we scan them?” he asked at last.

“Of course we already have. But this species could be advanced enough to present false sensor images; you know that.”

“But dammit, can we get better sensor readings? Get as close as possible to each space and scan it in detail?”

McGee stood up and adopted a mock-serious attitude. She took out her engineering tricorder, and pointed it at the ceiling, then ostentatiously read off its display, which, Reed assumed, showed nothing besides argon.

“I… I get the point. Sit down, Lieutenant,” Reed said, at last, clearly a little hurt.

“What about the hydrogen tanks?” Chilton said.

Yoshikawa scoffed. “I personally entered three of them in EV suits, and one of my MACO’s did the same on the other side. All six were completely vacant.”

McGee rubbed her forehead. “Unless they’re transporting rapidly from one tank to another, staying ahead of you.”

Yoshikawa through his hands up. “What a preposterous idea…” He went on like that.

Mayweather leaned in close to Reed. “If you ask me, I think they’re probably in the _other warp nacelle_.”

“What?” Reed asked, rather loudly.

“I mean, they would have to compensate for the drag on the warp coils to stay hidden, sir. What if they overcompensated?”

Reed stood up. “McGee, is the starboard nacelle cool?”

  
***

The security team and the remaining MACOs assembled again in the opposite nacelle pylon ramp, this time in tactical gear, with phase rifles set to a random frequency and a few projectile railguns.

Reed felt like a general addressing an army, though there were less than thirty men and women standing in a loose clump in front of him. Yoshikawa stood to his side, uneasy at attention with a railgun hanging in a sling, and the door to the nacelle catwalk was to his back. “All phase rifles set to kill. Railguns, shoot to disable, shoulder, knees. Close ranks and prepare to enter, on me. Do not fire until I say. Understood?”

As a body, they said “aye, sir” and variations.

Reed turned around and walked to the door. The crowd tightened at his back. With sweaty hands, he struggled with the crank. Finally, it came undone and he opened the door. The air inside was still hot, almost 40 degrees. He stepped inside, followed by Yoshikawa and random MACOs.

He crouched, drew his phaser and looked both ways. Instantly, he saw what he was looking for. To his right, that is, to aft, he saw a massive, cancer-like growth of machinery about fifteen meters down the walkway, big enough that one would have to squeeze past it on one side. It touched the warp coils on the other. Lights glowed green.

Reed advanced towards it, gun ahead of him. He lowered his night-vision eyepiece and found that it revealed nothing he hadn’t already seen, and walked on. Reaching the machinery, he squeezed past it, half-sitting on the railing to keep from touching it. Yoshikawa came next, his finger resting on the trigger guard of his railgun.

Over Reed’s earpiece, a junior bridge officer’s voice suddenly broke the silence. “Sir, Ambassador Varrell just disappeared.”

Reed sighed. “Acknowledged. Status on Phlox?”

“One moment, sir. Chilton says he’s stable, but still infected.”

“Acknowledged.”

They continued deeper. Tubes and exposed wires came close to their faces, and flashing lights shone occasionally in their eyes. Smells of oil and chemicals drifted to them. Strange noises put Reed’s teeth on edge.

Finally, they came into an open space. Reed’s blood ran cold: standing around a central area inside a hollow in the machinery, Archer, Hoshi, T’Pol, the froglike Trill… seemingly everyone who had disappeared, a total of thirteen people, standing in chillingly zombie-like posture. Their uniforms were ripped, and some of them had implants visible outside their skin. The Trill was manipulating some sort of tool that seemed to be attached to his hand. On a table in front of him, Solim Varell was unconscious and strapped down.

The assimilated crew members barely acknowledged Reed and Yoshikawa. As they watched, the Trill extended his free hand, fist balled up, towards Solim’s neck, and two long, pointed tubes shot out from beneath the skin of his hand and into the other Trill’s neck, among the spots.

Nothing happened.

Time passed as Reed watched.

Finally, the assimilated Trill _ripped_ into Varell’s chest with the tool attached to his hand, something that appeared to have no comprehensible purpose until it was rending the flesh of the man’s chest. Reed almost lost his lunch when he saw sternum and ribs.

The assimilated Trill extended the hypodermic tubules again and squirted black liquid directly into Varell’s wounds.

“Now,” Reed whispered, trying not to retch. He jumped into the chamber, phaser firing.

Archer turned to him, an eerie green light flashing in his eyes from somewhere in the machinery. He extended his arm, with some sort of ripping tool on it. A metallic flower sprung from beneath the skin of his cheek and opened up.

Reed gasped and turned his phaser on the captain. He shot a continuous beam at Archer’s chest.

***

Sickbay was flooded with ghastly-looking bodies. T’Pol, Archer, Tucker, two Trill and the rest. Chilton and the nurses were all in biohazard suits.

Chilton was standing on a stepladder, performing some kind of rapid-fire visual triage and shouting to all the nurses. “Alright, Varell is in the worst shape. I need him prepped for surgery _stat._ Inject all the humans with the maximum dose of Solution C, and start giving T’Pol small amounts, increasing every fifteen minutes, monitoring for reactions. I suppose there’s no harm in doing the same to the other Trill. As they start to reject the implants apply topical anaesthetic. If bad, get them into stasis. Now help me get him up on this table. Oh, Lieutenant Reed!”

Reed was standing near the door. He looked exhausted. “Yes, doctor?”

“You got them here in time. They’re not as far gone as Phlox. I think we can save them.”

Reed raised an eyeball. “What are you giving them?”

“A soup of antibodies from Phlox and Varell, if you’ll believe that. It’s been very effective in slowing the nanoprobes in tests.”

“More than I needed to know, Doctor. Phlox?”

She hesitated. “He wants to pull through. I have no idea, though.”

She turned her back and started sterilizing her hands. “Alright, well, if you could give us the room? I’m about to have to perform trauma surgery on the ambassador.”

***

Reed got out of quarantine. He walked down the corridor, with his uniform unzipped and the sleeves tied around his waste. He made his way to the mess hall, which he found empty. He got into the galley and made himself a tall coffee with cream and sugar, and took it to the captain’s ready room, where he spiked it heavily by skimming from three different bottles of whiskey from under the Captain’s desk, feeling oddly like he was thirteen and stealing from his father’s liquor cabinet again.

He ended up in the conference room with his coffee.

Finally, he paged Soval. The ambassador responded instantly, so Reed guessed he hadn’t been asleep.

“Are you occupied, Ambassador?”

“Not at all, Mr. Reed,” the sober, restrained voice of the ambassador said over the intercom. “Am I required on the bridge?”

“No, but if you want to come to the conference room, I could…” The words came hard to Reed. He had been raised not to say these kind of things out loud. “I could use someone to talk to.”

“I will be there shortly,” Soval said, as flatly as ever.

“There’s really no…” he realized the link was no longer active “…rush.”

Finally, the Vulcan arrived. “You wished to speak to me, Mr. Reed?” he said, as he sat down, opposite Reed.

Reed sighed, doubly ashamed to be showing emotion, and to be showing emotion in front of a Vulcan. “Have you ever been in command of a starship?”

Soval managed to _blink_ in a way that conveyed the same kind of stiff-upper-lip stoicism that Reed himself was struggling with in that moment. “Many times,” he said, with tone that spoke neither to long years, nor to difficult decisions, nor to anything else but the pure sounds of the words. As Solkar’s apprentice, he had been on Earth longer than Reed had, and his English was, Reed felt, elegant and unaccented.

“Is command… always like this? So difficult?”

The Vulcan rubbed his mouth. “Consider your position, Mr. Reed. You would hardly be in command if there were not a crisis.”

“If only it were T’Pol and not me. She wouldn’t feel a damn thing right now, Ambassador.”

“That is untrue, Mr. Reed. To a Vulcan, emotions are always… may I enquire as to your religion?”

“Anglican,” Reed said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s a type of Christianity,” he added.

“Emotions are always lying at the door. _And you shall be their desire, and you must rule over them,_ ” Soval said, with a singular impenetrability of tone.

“I’m trying to remember what that is,” Reed said, taking a large sip of the quite alcoholic coffee.

“It is from the Book of Genesis. Chapter… four, I believe.[6] I take it it is evocative of my meaning?”

“So T’Pol would be feeling the same thing as I would right now.”

“Worse. Fire. Fever. It is distasteful to us to discuss it. Emotion runs deep in the Vulcan psyche. We are a people who evolved in the presence of stressors your arboreal ancestors could hardly dream of. We are the second intelligence to evolve on our world, and the first was a predator that hunted us. While the path of convergent evolution, as guided by the Great Ones, has led us to the same physical form, even the same layout of neural pathways as humans, we are not alike. Without the strictures of logic, we would be as raving madmen compared to you. T’Pol is a child of about fifty. She is extraverted, something of a sexual pervert, and deeply in love with both her captain and her partner, your engineer. I think bearing command in this crisis would have broken her mind. The universe placed _you_ in command, Mr. Reed. Do not wish for it to be otherwise.”

“I see… But at least you’re trained to deal with your emotions.”

“And you are not? When I met you, Mr. Reed, I almost enquired whether you were raised on Vulcan. You seem… controlled, for a human.”

“And yet…”

“Yet nothing. You struggle with your emotions, exactly as T’Pol, or I.”

“’Keep a stiff upper lip.’”

“I am aware of the phrase.”

“I once had a quarrel with another officer, Soval. We beat each other to a bloody pulp. Severely reprimanded. It’s in my file. I might never make Captain because of it.”

“I told you something earlier, Mr. Reed. I said I had never considered the practicalities of murder. That was a lie. I have desired the death of _many,_ plotted their undoing in my head in great detail, and come close to making the first move. Do you understand?”

“I think I do, Ambassador.”

“Do you know Archer considers me his uncle? I could not teach his father control, and I could not teach him control when he was young enough to learn. He is impulsive, ruled by a singular passion for knowledge, like Ulysses or Faustus of your myths.”

“ _A grey spirit_ ,” Reed said, solemnly, “ _yearning with desire to follow knowledge like a sinking star_.”

“ _…beyond the utmost bounds of human thought_.[7] But you, Mr. Reed, you have the foundation of a Vulcan education, somehow. _Stiff upper lip,_ did you say? I could teach you.”

“I would—”

The intercom beeped. Chilton’s voice came over, fatigued but strong. “Lieutenant Reed?”

“Aye?”

“The humans and T’Pol are stable. The implants will take time to remove, but we have them in stasis and they’re mostly clear of nanoprobes. I expect they will all make a complete recovery, and the same for this aquatic Trill.”

“Varell?”

“I think you better get down here, sir. And you better get the rest of the delegation in here soon. They ripped his chest right open.”

“I was there,” Reed said, flatly.

“He’s dying, sir. It nicked one of his circulatory organs, and somehow, he’s gone septic. I suspect it wasn’t just a heart. It must have had some of the functions of a kidney or liver.”

“I’ll be right there, doctor.”

  
  


***

Varell looked pathetic. His chest was covered in bandages that almost matched the wrapping he wore over his stomach and waist. A big red-brown stain had soaked through them, though, and Reed could tell at a glance that, if he were close enough to a human, he was a goner.

“Ah, well. It was a good body,” he said, looking deep into Reed’s eyes, deeper than Reed would have liked. “And Solim was an interesting one. He was only my second, do you know?”

“Your second… host?” Reed asked, tentatively.

“Yes. I’ve been Solim for only a year. Before that it was Ezri Varell, a fine woman, if a bit wide at the hips.”[8]

“And I suppose it’ll be someone new next,” Reed said.

“I have decided, if he consents. I have reason to believe that I… meaning Varell… can join with your doctor Phlox. It may be his only chance of beating the infection.”

Reed thought about this for several seconds. Finally, he called Chilton over. “Can you wake Phlox?”

“I… I imagine I can, for a few minutes. Why?”

“Because… because this man wants to help him.”

ERRATA:

Yes, I did say McGee had disappeared and then had her in later scenes. Fixed it.

NOTES:

[1] Neither has he.

[2] The UT's rendering of a somehow even worse phrase that means, roughly, "make a galaxy of your bones." Best not to dwell on this.

[3] This is not what this word means.

[4] He'll drink up all the Hennessy you have on your shelf/but allow him to introduce himself

[5] It takes some effort to count this high on your fingers but most of the engineers here learned abacus in school, and with it the "chisan-bop" finger counting.

[6] He paraphrases Genesis 4:7, probably King James, but I don't remember.

[7] Ambassador Schn'Tor'ka Solkar (see ST: First Contact) was the first to introduce Tennyson to Vulcan. He was especially intrigued by "Tithonus," a poem in which a human man is married to the immortal goddess Aurora, doomed to fade and wither while she remains young.

[8] He's being rude even by the standards of his culture.


	3. Her Five Year Mission, Part 1 [FIXED] (5x03)

The Enterprise floated in a gravity field over the capital city of Denobula, near the massive docking spires of the largest spaceport in the Alliance worlds, where a stream of smaller ships floated past the terminals. A gravity engine the size of a mountain, nearly a hundred miles away, cast the field that they all hovered in, stable and gently bobbing.

The city below was the largest known to humankind, with a population near one billion. Vast sections of it were steep-sided pyramids, perhaps a mile and a half across, interchanging checker-board fashion with domes of about the same width, topped with tall spires. Other sections looked remarkably like human cities, but at greatly increased scales. Like the old Mexico City[1] on Earth it sprawled out and out, reaching in this case high up into the mountains that formed the skyline, and beyond.

In the new shuttlebay, Trip was leaning on the very edge of the gigantic, partially-opened hangar door and looking down and out on the city below. The Enterprise was uncannily silent and the city was not a noisy one. Trip was smoking his first cigar in three years, now that he was in natural air and not closed-loop life support. It was dry from a long time vacuum sealed, and it was just a Swisher. Archer stood a little further back from the ledge smoking a cigarette. To be sure, Archer did go through a few extra air filters in his quarter now and again...

“The future of Earth?” Archer asked, staring down at a floating building.

“Nah, I cain’t picture that logistically. Denobula is rich in resources and they managed not to weaken their ecosystem too bad. We’d never be able to build anything of this scale safely on Earth. We don’t have the metals or the mass-scale manufacturing. We could probably ruin the atmosphere and devote the entire Starfleet to importing iron, carbon, limestone for cement, but no, not Earth. Some of the colonies, maybe.”

“Centauri, probably. They sure had a head start. You know an accord was just signed? That was the last prewar colony to hold out on recognizing the United Earth government.”

“We could go visit Dr. Cochrane’s birthplace. You and me, maybe get... Oh, I forgot again.”

“It’s a crater. A Kzinti[2] mudslinger put an asteroid in the middle of that town. And A. G.... he did visit it on a diplomatic visa, not long before he passed.”

They both sighed.

Tucker pointed with his cigar. “You see that tower up ahead, with the flashing green and blue airnav beacons?”

“About one o’ clock? I see it.”

“Phlox’s home is about halfway down it, where you can’t see because of the other towers. Supposedly he’s up on the very top meditating. He’s been that way for days.”

“I hope he’s alright,” the captain said.

“Yeah.”

“Life sure goes fast, doesn’t it?” Archer said. “A week ago Phlox was infected with nanites, warp 7 was a hypothetical, at least for us, we were still technically in a cold war with Earth’s largest colony... And now none of that is true, we might actually get Centauri to join United Earth, and Phlox is... two people now?”

“I think Phlox and Varell are... maybe one person now.”

“When can we test the warp 7 protocol?”

“I’d like to try warp 6.5 on the unmodified engines first. Theoretically the new software should be enough to keep us stable. Honestly the modifications are secondary. We may be making warp 7 well before we get time to install the new coils. It’ll be inefficient but I reckon we’ll keep finding excuses to use it.”

“I’d like a physical emergency cutoff on the bridge. If you can’t do that I want to be in engineering with the switch in my hand in case things go south.”

“We’ll both have e-stop switches, and I’ll route one to a third area as well, in case we’re both incapacitated. Should be a smooth ride, though.”

“That’s what they said.”

* * *

It’s been a long road...

* * *

Meanwhile Travis was touring the Denobulan government’s advanced propulsion laboratory. It was halfway across the planet, in a floating spherical building twice the size ofEnterprise,tethered to a mile-high skyscraper by little more than a rope bridge.

Inside he viewed the very first Denobulan warp ship, preserved in a nitrogen atmosphere with one of its vast fabric solar panels unfurled beneath it, as well as over a hundred prototypes of engines and light spacecraft.

In a small side passage the guide pointed out to him a warp ship no larger than two fifty-gallon barrels laid end to end, with nothing more than a seat for a space-suited pilot.

“Does it have... a warp core?”

The guide, an attractive Denobulan of a gender Trip did not necessarily recognize, turned around. “Yes, similar to the small reactors that power most of our shuttle-craft.

“Our shuttles are powered by fission batteries. That’s amazing. Do you know if plans to this vehicle are publicly available?”

“They are. But if you would care to accompany me to the curator’s office I can do much better.”

“How’s that?”

“Under the terms of our species’ technological exchange agreement, we are authorized to loan you technology for examination. We can have this exhibit transferred to your ship along with manuals on its service and operation for... I’m sure we can negotiate as to the period.”

“What, really? You want to let us borrow this ship? How valuable is it?”

“One of about sixty produced, about a hundred years ago. We have full confidence that it will return to us in the same or better condition; isn’t that right?”

“Uh... of course. Let me talk to my chief engineer.”

* * *

In an engineering lab, Trip had the space bike in pieces. There was a lot of alien loctite [3] in some of the bolts, but the Denobulans had kindly sent corresponding solvent. It had taken him all day. Travis was still technically on shore leave, but a civilian who oddly resembled him leaned up against the wall in one of those awful plaid shirts that made some of his superiors worry that he was colorblind: Boomer fashion.

Finally, the reactor was free. Travis helped Trip pull it from the inside of the bike.

“This design is genius,” Trip said. “I’ve never seen such a convoluted and compact design for the reaction chamber.”

“Can it be replicated?”

“Now that we know how it works? Yeah, I could machine this myself in about two hours, spend another four getting plasma injectors cast. We could build a warp shuttle with this!”

“Even the Vulcans barely use warp shuttles! Why haven’t the Denobulans done more with this technology?”

“So you know how many are off Denobula right now?”

“No, how many?”

“Under a hundred million. They don’t travel much. They’re very social and thrive best in tight communities. Phlox is an introvert in their species, living out here with us in a comparatively empty ship. Or he’s a claustrophobe compared to them or something. And you’ve seen the closet he sleeps in!”

Travis raised his eyebrows. “I mean, I wonder if we even know the new Phlox.”

“They’ll know us. I’m just gonna be supportive.”

* * *

Days and weeks passed. Tucker painstakingly got the Enterprise warp control software ready for the ship’s historical warp 7 trial, from deep space near Denobula to deep space near Sol. McGee worked in the machine shop most of every night shift on the odd little warp core that Tucker had assigned her to build. It had not been as easy as he’d first thought, and he had other duties. She’d had as well but she relished the excuse to neglect them.

Travis flew the antique bike at impulse speeds around Denobula, something which took a lot of convincing for both the Denobulan authorities and Captain Archer. And Hoshi had apparently married a pair of nice Denobulan women while drunk on shore leave. Details were not forthcoming, but she seemed quite happy with the arrangement, whatever it was.

Finally, in Enterprise’s third month of being “careened” at the capital city port, Phlox and Varell, now apparently fully blended into one person, came back from the surface--he was now the only thing holding up Enterprise’s departure.

He came up by shuttle, of course--no Trill who wanted to live would use a transporter, he said. The senior staff were there to meet him... Hoshi was noticeably absent, however. This being was noticeably different from the Phlox they’d known before. His gait was entirely changed, a long rolling stride instead of Phlox’s precise steps, but with none of Solim Varell’s swagger. His posture was straight and a little stiff, and he wore Phlox’s old Denobulan work shirt with the top two buttons open, and had something wrapped around his stomach under the fabric.

“Well, well, well, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. It’s me, ladies and gentlemen. Why... why aren’t you speaking?”

Archer spoke. “Are you... Phlox? Are you Varell?”

“All of both! It took some soul-searching to understand it and come to terms with the intimacy, but now I don’t know how I ever lived... unjoined. Please, just treat me like regular old Phlox!”

“So what do we call you?” Tucker asked, with much less trepidation in his voice than Archer. In fact, his tone was rather excited and friendly.

“Formally? Phlox Varell will do. But Phlox to you, just the same.”

Archer cocked an eyebrow.

“I hope the situation wasn’t awkward at home. Did you give Pheezle my regards?”

“I surely did. My wives and husbands were quite understanding after a time. We are an accepting people, Mr. Tucker!”

He didn’t notice Archer mouthing “we?”

“When can I get back to work?”

Archer almost took a step back. “Have the doctors on the surface cleared you?”

“The Denobulans, the Trill and the Vulcans, yes. As healthy a... what was it... ‘possum’ as ever lived!”

Archer almost blushed. He had never called Phlox a possum, but he hadn’t done enough, he realized, to curtail its use (and “koala” and so on) among the junior officers. Good that he seemed to take it in good humor? Or would that make it worse when he realized it wasn’t always said kindly? “Well then,” he said. “Of... of course.”

Trip caught Phlox on the way out. “Hey, Doc, what are your... uh?” He realized he’d never asked this question without flubbing it.

“Pronouns?” Phlox asked. “Oh, I don’t know. Same as ever, I suppose. If that changes you’ll be the first to know!”

* * *

The fifth of December was set aside entirely for warp speed tests--first, the new warp shuttle, and then Enterprise. Travis would attempt to take the shuttle to warp 3 with Enterprise following directly behind it to receive telemetry and, if necessary, support the shuttle’s warp field with an extension of her own.

Then they would make some preliminary tests of the new high speed protocols aboard Enterprise, and if successful, warp home to Earth at the highest stable speed, estimated to be warp 6.5--higher than any human starship had yet achieved, even in bursts.

Shran had shown up to observe--there was some talk that he was only aboard to see if the new engines were any better than the latest Andorian ones, though Archer barely believed it. They’d have to send an engineer for that.

In the morning Travis reported to Phlox for his preflight. He noticed a nurse shadowing Phlox attentively... he wondered if it was a training exercise for her, or... if Phlox were being assessed.

The new “sickbay” was just coming online, a marvel of modern design with computerized biobeds, over a billion microtranstators in each, capable of performing most of the functions of the old scanning tube, as well as touchlessly monitoring vitals. Once tuned, they could even monitor someone’s vitals from across the room. The old Phlox hadn’t liked the layout of this new work area very much, but there was still a lot of blood in the old infirmary up in the saucer section, and anyways Phlox Varell didn’t seem to have a problem with it.

Travis noted a gentle cooing coming from one of the biobeds in the corner. After some time he realized Phlox had it tuned to his own heart-rate, EEG, and so on. Travis noticed that one of the floating dot indicators on the screen above that biobed was flickering rapidly between two different positions, each of which changed, as if it were jumping between two active vital signs of different levels and patterns. Sometimes, he noticed, it hovered in the middle and moved more slowly.

Travis’ examination was the least invasive he’d ever had--mostly, he just lay on a biobed while Phlox tuned it to him, and then sat up while he kept an eye on heart rate, blood pressure and the rest. Finally, Phlox had him do a few sit-ups, then get up and jog in place for a few seconds, looking more at the readout than at him.

“Well, that makes two of us who’ve been given a clean bill of health!” Phlox said, gleefully, but looking at the concerned nurse rather than at Travis. He turned back to him and said “I would try to cut cholesterol just a little, but you’re fit to fly. Good luck and try to avoid high G’s!”

“Thanks, doc.”

Travis decided that Phlox Varell didn’t seem like a new person so much as Phlox with his guard slightly lowered. He quite liked the new Phlox, actually, he decided.

* * *

In the cockpit of the redesigned shuttle, Trip showed Travis the controls--not that he really needed the help. There was just a warp throttle taken from the spare bridge panels in storage, grafted onto a regular shuttle’s front panel--a little badly placed, as he’d have to extend his arm a little far from the main controls--he’d already decided to use the manual stick--and possibly kill his reaction time if he had to fight the stick immediately after going to warp--or drop out of warp while fighting the stick.

This was the first moment he had a bad feeling about things, a bad feeling that turned out to be very apt for the flight he went on to have.

The shuttle took off from the new bay with a little sluggishness--it was now twice its specified wet weight, and the landing thrusters had not been upgraded. Travis swung it around and took it out to a place 35 kilometers ahead of Enterprise, and began the preflight checks.

Meanwhile, a small crowd were sitting in the new ship’s bar, the “Lucky Pierre,” which had been one of Trip’s infamous personal projects. McGee got off-duty when day shift began and went and found herself a seat at the bar with a good view of the giant viewscreen hanging between the bottle racks. She was surprised to see the Vulcan exile, Soval, pouring coffee and the odd cocktail for the other guests. She ordered a beer.

The viewscreen came on, showing what the main bridge viewscreen was displaying at that moment. The warp shuttle hung there in the distance, charging its nacelles.

This wasn’t the main event, McGee thought. I just came from the main event. The boss ought to be setting up the warp 7 run now.

Finally, a countdown started, just as the elderly, patient but somewhat judgmental-looking Vulcan poured her a pint of bitter.

As the voice of T’Pol over the ship’s PA reached “zero,” Enterprise and the shuttle both went to warp. It was the bottom of the same second that all hell broke loose.

McGee knew exactly what it was, too. An unstable wormhole had formed in the wake of both ships, probably some kind of imbalance in the shuttle’s engines. Over a dozen of Earth’s first warp ships had been lost this way. The passage of time felt distorted, and the subjective gravity tilted and shook like intense turbulence. When Soval dove for the underside of the bar, he seemed to leave a trail of afterimages behind him.

Alarms blared all over the ship. McGee almost lept up and ran all slow-motion back to engineering, but realized that day shift didn’t need an extra person running around getting in the way. She’d just have to trust Tucker to be the miracle worker in this instance.

Then she realized something that turned her stomach immediately--if the officer at the helm were new, they might try slamming the throttle to full to escape the unstable wormhole pulling on the ship, not realizing that the throttle had been reconfigured for the warp 7 run. Throttle full would be... past warp 7.

She noticed she’d picked her beer up by the top of the glass on instinct, to prevent it from spilling, and took a big, slow-motion chug. There was nothing left to do, not for her.

* * *

On the bridge, an Ensign Wu was fighting the controls with his leg hooked around the pillar that held up his chair. All three emergency buttons had been pushed, but it didn't matter. The warp field was self-sustaining. Finally, he reached the bottom of the list every helmsperson memorizes in the event of this type of incident. There was one last thing to try to save the ship.

A deep, distorted “no” rang out from the captain’s chair behind him, but he’d already done it.

The shaking became unbearable. The bridge crew were thrown this way and that. Wu was flipped from his chair and knocked out.

In the end, it was Archer that took a flying leap for the helm controls and brought the throttle down to zero, before collapsing to the floor on top of Wu and having to roll off of him. He bumped his side on the arm of Wu’s chair.

Enterprise dewarped sharply. One last tremor shook the decks as the inertial compensator tried to keep up with the incredible deceleration. Within a split second they were at full stop.

* * *

Travis came out of warp tumbling end over end, and main power failed a moment later, with it inertial compensators and main gravity. It took manually firing the auxiliary maneuvering thrusters to set the shuttle in a steady attitude.

He rubbed his jaw and analyzed the situation. Somehow he’d exceeded warp seven or maybe even eight in the shuttle--slowly an idea of how came together in his mind. He’d been dragged along when Enterprise accelerated--but why had she done so? And how had she gone to such speeds without breaking up?

He checked his pockets, found his pouch of chew and stuck a pinch between his cheek and gum. That made him feel a little more in control of his life. He sent out a long-range scan for ship’s transceivers.

He did not see Enterprise. What he did see made him gulp. It was big and it saw him.

* * *

Archer had been among roughly twenty crew members who weren’t suffering from sprains, breaks or concussions. Two were dead, both ensigns in the command division. Triage rules were in place, and the walking wounded were assembled in one cargo bay for treatment, teams were working to move the immobile ones to another cargo bay on stretchers, and three were in delicate condition in the new sickbay--Trip and Hoshi among them. As soon as Archer was no longer needed to move stretchers, he made his way to see them.

The other doctors had Phlox on (comparatively) light duty, so he was treating these three. Sickbay was otherwise empty.

Trip was awake but in a complicated neck brace and his legs were sprawled out in a way that said he couldn’t feel them just now. Hoshi was in a hospital gown and unconscious, and so was an Ensign McArty.

“How are they?”

“Stable. We just rebuilt all of Trip’s cervical vertebrae. If the responders hadn’t immobilized his neck properly he’d be dead right now. But there was no damage to the spinal cord, and muscle and bone I can repair. He’ll be fine by tomorrow. McArty had a bad concussion and was breathing rough but we got them on a ventilator and patched them up.

“Now, Hoshi, I’m still worried about. Six months ago, this kind of encephalopathy would have her paralyzed for life. But we’re learning to repair brain damage, and I think the new machinery did a good job on her. She’s breathing unassisted, hasn’t been in v-fib for over an hour, and neural activity looks... promising. I believe she’ll recover completely. I can’t tell you when she’ll be awake, but I expect it’ll be rough at first. You’ve experienced anteriograde amnesia, have you not?”

“No?” Archer said.

“I don’t recall why I thought you had.[4] It’s very possible that she may experience memory problems or some other problem with her cognition... but I believe they will subside.”

“Feel alright?”

“I told you it’d be a pain in the neck to go to warp 7.”

Archer laughed, then clutched at his left side.

“Captain, I think you’d better let me look at you?”

“I’m fine. Cracked rib, not my first. You have... I guess you have nothing else to do, eh, doc?”

“As it stands I do not. Come over here and let me see your side.”

* * *

T’Pol’s broken arm was already mended, and she was sitting in the captain’s chair when Archer got to the bridge. He did not make any motion to relieve her.

“Report,” he said, frowning deeply.

“We are several hundred light years from our previous position.”

Archer’s eyebrow’s shot up. “That can’t be right.”

“Captain, I have checked and rechecked. Every method of stellar navigation available to us concurs that that is our position: 430.9 light years from Denobula in the direction of the galactic core, putting us 434.01 light years from Earth.”

“That would mean... it would take us three years to get home.”

“More. We would have to stop to refuel at least eleven times according to current fuel consumption, or eight times if we were to proceed at warp five. In either case, four years and several months, depending on the availability of dilithium.”

“We’re in trouble.”

“Considerable. However, we were waiting to be assigned a five year mission. We were equipped for one. It could be much worse, Captain.”

“It could.”

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**ERRATA:** Yes, I swapped Dr. Kate Chilton and Ltc. Guinevere McGee's names in this chapter by accident. I haven't fleshed them out a lot, and a lot of time went by between me writing chapter two and me writing chapter three (honestly there were long breaks in the middle of each) so it's a wonder there's any continuity at all. I find the name McGee very forgettable but it's like... what I went with. They're the second medical officer and the night engineering lead, respectively, and they're married--both from Honolulu. 

**NOTES:**

[1]: Nuked by the New Confederate States of America in WWIII.

[2]: This is an event that happened in the recent Second Man-Kzin War, which humans (not allied with Earth) won rather handily. Alpha Centauri will shortly go on to fight a third, retaliatory war against the Kzinti, defeating them almost to the point of genocide before United Earth intervenes. The Fourth (so-called) Man-Kzin war will take place in the 2250's between the Federation and the restored Kzinti Empire, and will lead to the almost total disarmament of the Kzinti.

[3]: The semen of the ukthor worm.

[4]: This idea will come to bother them both immensely for a time.


	4. Her Five Year Mission, Part 2 (5x04)

Shran had his hand on a main engine power capacitor, and had been about to yank it out of the wall when the main engines shut down on their own. 

An engineering crewman who had endured the turbulence of the failed warp test without losing his cool or his stance finally had had enough. "Are you fucking stupid, Ambassador?"

"It's Commander. And I prefer to think of myself as a straightforward thinker." 

" _Oh, my God,_ Commander Tucker isn't moving!" a voice called from nearby. Shran was there in two bounds.

"Stop! Do not touch his head. He must have landed on his neck," he said. "Do any of you know how to immobilize a human's head in this situation?"

The engineering crewmen and ensigns all said "no!"

" _You_ , make sure he doesn't move. And _you,_ make this woman a splint!"

Shran went to the corridor. He found a crewman with blue piping on her uniform. "Can you imobilize a broken neck?"

"Yuh-yeah... why?"

" _Tucker._ Come quickly."

***

An hour later, Shran had still not been permitted to see Archer, so he had found his way to the bar, where Soval and McGee, back from moving the wounded, were sweeping up broken glass. He ordered "something with complex hydroxyls,"[1] and Soval glared at him while pouring him a glass of creme de menthe. 

"I thought we were past this, Ambassador."

"Your choice of timing is most impolite."

"Grunhhh." He shot the sickly mint liqueur and asked for another. "I saved a pinkskin's life. I think a drink isn't too much to ask."

"As the case may be, Commander." He dutifully poured another seventy or eighty mils. 

"Where is the captain?"

"He was in here just before you were, helping move the wounded."

"Good! He has a sense of duty to his men."

"There were many wounded."

"I would think so. I'm only surprised you Vulcans didn't stop this test. Clearly the pinkskins aren't ready for high level warp technology."

McGee looked at him. She realized that he must have assumed dark-skinned humans were a different species--in fact, he must have thought she was from some more advanced culture, like Soval, and spoken in confidence to these two other aliens. "You... need an attitude adjustment, honestly, sir. I am in line to be the chief engineer on this boat, and I don't honestly picture you having been the sort to study physics at length. So why don't you leave that assessment to _me_."

"Enlighten me, then."

"We moved too slowly. We wanted to ease into this new warp paradigm, replace the engines bit by bit, keep whatever was still working. We were being _too_ careful."

"Too careful?"

"Besides, I think it was the unique circumstances of the shuttle test that caused this--no, no, hold on, sir, didn't your people destroy a _moon_ in the process of learning to use antimatter?"

"Indeed," Soval said. "The commander has clearly never heard the counterarguments to the position he is espousing. For my part, commander, I have found this line of argument most futile."

"I... retract my earlier statement. I need to find the captain."

"Don't let us keep you." She shook her head, and went back to sweeping wet glass, getting a little dizzy from the ethanol fumes.

* * *

Hoshi woke up. Her mind was very hazy. She did not immediately remember where she was or what she had just been doing. There was no... last memory. She could not place herself in the timeline of her life at all.

Then there came a familiar face, with shining pale blue eyes and high, expressive brows. 

"Phlox! What happened?"

"There was a warp test. The ship jolted suddenly to a higher warp factor and you were thrown from your bed. I'm afraid you had quite the intercerebral hematoma."

"I... don't remember..." 

"Yes. You went through the neural regenerator. It repaired the neural pathways, but some of them aren't... connected in the right order, shall we say? I can't promise you you'll get back to your regular self today, or tomrrow, or... this year, but I believe with good evidence that you'll get there."

"How long do you _think_ it'll take, Doctor?" she asked, frantically. 

"I'm very sorry, Hoshi. I just don't know. You are one of the most neurologically flexible beings I've ever encountered. Very possibly, that will be in your favor. Your brain has to relearn how to talk to itself, in a manner of speaking."

"Oh, I'm so good at that, am I?" she said, sullenly. "The linguist has magic linguist brain. God."

"Hoshi, I understand that people have placed a lot of importance and pressure on your talents, sometimes to the expense of... your personhood. But I can count on one hand how many humans speak my language. It has twenty grammatical cases, six moods, ten aspects---just the future tenses alone fill a book. I say I can count on one hand, because that number is one."

"I don't remember a word of it. I couldn't speak if I tried." 

"Jana tas ron, bo kinissaranta athraxa vas.[2]"

"I know... 'athraxa.' Why do I know 'athraxa?' Wives?"

"I said, your wives will be dissapointed to hear that."

"My WHAT?!" 

Tucker looked over from another biobed, echoing her sentiments. _What?_

In the joined man's head, something that had been more Varell than Phlox, when the two were distinguishable, said _you idiot_ , that was exactly the wrong thing to bring out at this juncture. Why would she remember something that only just happened, if she's lost so much of her education?

Finally, he said out loud: "That may be a topic for... a little later. Let's take things slow." 

"No, I'd like... you're not even Phlox, are you? I remember something about that."

She looked like she was about to fall off the bed.   
  
Phlox reached out to put a hand on her shoulder and steady her, as he had done many times before. 

"Don't touch me! Get away from me! You're not Phlox!"

He jumped back. She had a point. He was in all honesty a different person--but in the sense, he liked to think, that an old man is hardly the person he was when he was young. 

She ran out of sickbay, oddly unsteady, her hand to her forehead.

Phlox rubbed his ridges and walked over to a computer terminal. 

"What are you doing, doc?" Tucker asked. 

"Entering her release from sickbay, postdated about ten minutes ago. Wouldn't want her to get in trouble for leaving in a fright, now, would we?"

"Someone should check on her."

"And that someone shouldn't be me. You're fine to go, why don't you see that she gets some rest?"

"Alright. Am I clear for duty?"

Emphatically not. You need time to heal that neck. Don't take that brace off for 48 hours and then come see me. We'll see then. I will clear Hoshi for duty as soon as I believe it would be good for her... whenever that is."

"Ugh. Alright." He patted Phlox on the back--he wouldn't say it, but he was glad to see that this new version of him had gained some... confidence or something. This new Phlox sounded like a commanding officer sometimes... or like a real Starfleet CMO. But somehow... he was still himself. Phlox looked at him with the same inexpressible good nature as ever.

* * *

In the situation room, Archer peeled the last dermabandage from his face in the corner. Where the implant had burst through his skin, there wasn't even a scar. 

He turned back around to look at T'Pol, Soval, Tucker and Reed, who were clustered around the map display on the conference table. Tucker was quite imposing in the low-light with the complicated brace around his neck seeming some insect-like extension of his body. 

Archer spoke at last. "I'm feeling... better about this. We can expect Starfleet relief in about three years if they've calculated our position."

"I'm not sure that they could have, sir," Reed said, on the nonce trying to do some of the physics in his head, only pushing himself perilously close to a real headache. "We may have already been declared dead."

"Xindi? They're closer," Archer said.

"Interestingly, sir, it would have been a real possibility," Tucker said, "but their engines were based on sphere technology and they've placed a moratorium on interstellar travel while they figure out how to use them without damaging space in the same way the spheres did."

"So we may well be on our own until federation space."

"The Andorians are closest. We may get a signal to them inside of two years and get relief inside of three," Soval said.

"I never thought to hear you say that," Archer said. 

"Commander Shran became intoxicated in my quarters last night. We talked at length of the war. It... is difficult to maintain a conflict of ideologies when both parties realize the depth of falsehood involved."

"Did you... invite him?"

"He was looking for permanent quarters, and there is a..."

"Oh my god," Reed said. "There's a bunk bed. I..." he trailed off, chuckling.

"I agree that there is something amusing or ironic about the juxtaposition," Soval said.

"If he gets too much for you, I'm sure someone would trade with him," Reed said. 

Soval said nothing.

"We have a choice to make," T'pol said at last. "We can adjust course 10.2 degrees towards Andorian space from this projection, and it's very possible that we could be relieved a full three months earlier. We add seven months to our voyage back to Earth, assuming we find no way to enhance our engines. Or we maintain course and prioritize returning to Earth, delaying our contact with the Andorians."

"Split the difference," Archer said. "Depending what happens, I want to option to curve more towards Andorian space or more towards Earth."

"A logical solution, Captain."

"Thank you."

"Which brings us," Tucker said, "to Travis." 

"We cannot presume with any confidence that Ensign Mayweather is alive," T'Pol said. 

"Now, I can't say as I agree," Tucker said. "I've done some simulations. If he was strapped in, he should have survived dewarping. And he was strapped in, dammit. If he didn't _hit_ anything, he should be behind us--meaning ahead of us, now that we've come about, with about seventy-two hours of life support left. I have the main sensors scanning constantly for anything that could be his shuttle. I think he'll be about two light years from here, back of the envelope."

"It is imperative to find him," Soval said.

Archer looked at him and raised an eyebrow. 

"Morale has become a major factor. It would not do for the crew to mourn a celebrated comrade while also mourning the temporary loss of home. Moreover, every skilled crewmember will become more and more vital if there is..."

"There is...?" Reed asked.

"Attrition of the crew."

Archer furrowed his brow deeply. God, that was the real question, wasn't it? When we say we'll make it back, what's the margin for error on that "we?" 

* * *

Time had passed.  
  
Hoshi was in her quarters, headphones on, listening to "The Yes Album and trying desperately to remember the circumstances that had led to... her "wives." 

Her personal log was there... there were surely relevant entries. But she had this pressing need to remember by herself. The idea was not unpleasant in itself, but the not-knowing was horrifying. Who were these unspecified women, who spoke Denobulan? Had she loved them? In what span of time? When had she... had it been her idea? Had they...? It had all the thrilling feeling of falling in love, the lightness in the chest as from a sudden loss of gravity, but the fear that accompanied the fall into love was magnified a thousand times.

At least, she thought, she'd loved them, whoever they were. But she had a lot of remembering to do before she let that feeling into her life. And she was certain that the marriage was premature.

That night, she found herself reading extensively about the history of psychosurgery, specifically the horrifying procedure known as the frontal lobotomy. She knew on some level that this barbarism of the late dark ages had nothing to do with the scrambling of pathways in her frontal lobe from the hematoma and the reconstruction that that... imposter had done afterwards, but she couldn't shake the idea... the image of this man Varell standing over her with an ice pick, looking at her through the eyes of the being he was parasitizing. 

She needed Phlox to reassure her, and the last thing she could imagine wanting was the same thing from the Phlox-Varell-thing. She wondered at times if she was being unfair but... the emotional reaction was visceral, made such thoughts almost unthinkable.

* * *

Around the same time, a beep from the intercom woke up Trip and T'Pol, who had been deep asleep in their quarters. 

"Yes?" Tucker asked, his hand on the button.

Trip, I need you to come figure out the exact length of time Travis could stay alive in that shuttlepod past the end of his life support," Archer said. He sounded grim, and Tucker was sure that he hadn't slept.

"He would have passed out after a further fifteen point two hours, and the brain damage would have been irreversible shortly after that," T'Pol said, without sitting up. "Is that true?" Tucker asked. 

"Yes," T'Pol breathed, barely speaking. "I calculated as much this afternoon, from his lung capacity, the volume of the shuttle and the quality of the air as life support would have deteriorated.

"Captain, she says she's sure."

"That means he'll be dead... thirteen minutes ago."

"Will you... Captain, can I make a request?" Trip asked. 

"Yes."

"Before you inform the whole crew, can I break it to some of his friends myself? I want to sit down with them in the morning."

"Of course. I'm not going to tell night shift. I... have to turn in."

"Thank you."

"Captain," T'Pol said. "I know you thought of him as family. You have my condolences."

* * *

Archer kept reading, unable to sleep, sick to his stomach. In the pages of the Zelazny novel, humans who had transformed themselves after the Hindu gods fought and killed each other, as petty as mere mortals. Archer found no comfort in the book, as he usually did when he was reading. He sighed, and went to turn off his desk light. 

He decided for the fifth time that, should he find opportunity to devote the labor, he would have to have a desk in his quarters again. The ready room didn't suit the lifestyle of a busy captain, three decks and six hundred feet of corridor from his bed. 

Not a moment after the desk lamp went off, the tactical alert sirens and lights came on and Archer was glad to be in his ready room and not his quarters. Yoshikawa (oddly enough) paged him to the bridge.  
  
He zipped up the front of his coveralls and stepped into the short vestibule between his ready room and the bridge. Here we go again, he thought.

On the bridge, the night bridge officer, Chen, stood from the captain's chair and stepped aside. On the viewscreen, a massive, blocky ship with huge, glowing blue warp nacelles hung, right on top of the Enterprise. 

"Unknown hostiles. They dewarped and fired a warning shot," Yoshikawa said.

"Are we near any systems?"

"About twenty hours from the nearest one," a voice from the helm said. He spun around. It was Shran.

"Chen, why is he--?"

She spoke frantically. "You left orders that he was to have full access to the ship."

"Shran, what are we looking at?"

Yoshikawa said "the vessel--"

Shran interrupted. "It reads as very similar to Earth tech. The warning shot was a primitive plasma burst, even by human standards, but the sheer size of the weapon--it would have destroyed us with a direct hit, Archer."

"Are they hailing, Ho--" Archer caught himself "--Shran?"

"No."

"Back us off to a safe distance." 

"Where's reverse?"

Archer got up and strode to the console as quickly as he could. He moved Shran's hand out of the way and went to half impulse astern. A second later he realized he was still gripping the Andorian   
commander's icy hand, and quickly let it go. 

He had not expected him to have soft hands, he later reflected. He'd only touched Shran once, through his sleeve in a moment of great strife...[3]

The ship, looking like a ziggurat of giant cargo containers, slowly shrunk in the viewscreen. 

Archer looked over at the indicator lights. The main camera wasn't zoomed in very far at all. They had been within a kilometer of the other ship. He was not going to enjoy reading Chen's report very much. Perhaps some finer point of protocol escaped her...

Finally, he heard Yoshikawa dashing to the comm station. "Sir," he said, "they're hailing."

"On screen."

A humanoid with pale, powdery skin and pronounced black marks on their cheeks, around their mouth and where a human's eyebrows would have been--or was it all makeup--in imposing, black plate armor, appeared on the viewer. 

"You're in our space, pitiful human. Go back to Earth and tell them this part of the galaxy belongs to the Juggaloes! Leave now, and I might even send you a little present I picked up in space for you. Delay, and I will vaporize you."

"What?" Archer demanded.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

[1] Ethanol is a fairly weak intoxicant to Andorians compared to several related chemicals, and hence their ale, formed by fermentation of starches from a maize-like vegetable, and enhanced with neutral alcohols, is an incredibly strong liquor to humans. Certain amino acids form the basis of most of their intoxicating beverages, which have been sold in human space as health drinks.

[2] Literally _"that thing, that your two wives may let their faces fall from it."_ There is an odd use of the subjunctive here that is dialectal.

[3] He tends not to think of the duel, where he did in fact put the Commander in a choke hold.


	5. Her Five Year Mission, Finale (5x05)

The ship in the distance looked... homey to Travis. He’d seen Boomers put together similar-looking ships, but at a smaller scale.

It was only after Boris Vankov had discovered structural integrity fields during the tuneup of a freighter’s warp 1 engine that it had become possible to build a ship that could accelerate at gravities that would crush the hull like a tin can before. He’d been a Boomer, unlike his mentor--the exiled Centaurian, Cochrane--and while flatlanders like the Archer family hadn’t adopted the the idea until the last twenty years, once theyhadto, Boomers had gone crazy with it, building ships that were little more than collections of cargo containers with a small, inexpensive warp ship somewhere in the middle, holding it all together with gravitational waves. Replace the cargo containers with skyscrapers, make it spin on its axis to provide cheap simulated gravity, and you had the huge ship in the distance, two or three times the size of the flatlander contraption that Travis had found himself serving on--the nation, in his mind, that he was expatriated to.

There was something that looked a lot like a giant plasma cannon mounted on a gimbal, right on the nose of it--it was like a pyramid of the giant containers, but stretched out, so that one sharp corner of it pointed forward. On several of the containers was a symbol of a cartoonishly exaggerated humanoid with shaggy hair and something held menacingly in its hand--rampant guardant, as it were.

The moment it had come into view, Travis did what any Boomer would do--he subtly fired one of the thrusters, so that the warp shuttle would list end over end in a random direction.

He slid out the keyboard from under his console--Dvorak, but he’d taken typing on Earth, fortunately--and expertly punched in a few Unix commands. A tiny hatch slid open on top of the shuttle, and the gimballed camera extended out. He set it to track the other ship. At intervals it’d black out when the body of the shuttle eclipsed the ship, but he got a better and longer look at it. It had exposed sensor dishes that were apparently tracking him. Hopefully, it would consider him inconsequential space junk, and he could trigger the warp drive if it didn’t. It was just... wait and see.

Travis paused to spit, and before he could look back at the viewscreen he was trapped in a tractor beam. Fuck, he muttered under his breath.

Ten minutes later, he was being dragged from the shuttle by strange beings with black and white faces. He’d dropped one with his phase pistol, not knowing and not caring whether it had been set on stun or kill, and gotten in a strong right hook on a second, but the second and third had overborn him and dragged him to the ground, then grabbed him painfully by his biceps. At last, they stood him up and frogmarched him out of the shuttle.

They weren’t like anything he’d seen before, but something about them seemed uncannily familiar. They were proportioned in a certain way, or the subtle, almost unconscious scents they gave off were similar to some species he knew... or something.

Travis wasn’t an anthropologist, but his eyes flitted around the rooms he was passing through and saw the traces of a society... this wasn’t just a military ship, a uniformed ship, like Enterprise. There was space agriculture, sitting areas, stores. The decks curved around, following the rotation of the ship, but the perpendicular walls of the containers were visible, and it was always clear when they passed between containers.

Now, Travis had never been on a ship or station that rotated, and the coriolis effect -- he remembered the term from a documentary about the Man-Kzin wars -- messed with his inner ear, but he felt like he was on Babylon 5 or Mobile Suit Gundam. Though he felt doomed, there was something exciting and even fun, not just the anticipation of what Boomers call “the final surprise,” but a real thrill of discovery... the thing his father had told him about when convincing him to apply to Starfleet, the thing that he had come to hope for when he woke up in the morning.

Finally, he grinned, and felt more like himself for grinning. “Take me to your leader,” he muttered.

“Yeah, no shit,” the one alien said.

Travis was conscious that he did not have a communicator or UT with him.

“Man, it’s rare to meet people out here that swear so fluently,” he said, channeling his best friend a little.

“Yeah, espanish is my first language but I do try,” the person squeezing the life out of his left bicep said. “People tell me I overpronounce the words, but I can’t hear that.”

Travis’ head reeled, but he let his mouth say “no, man, you sound good.”

* * *

On the bridge of the Enterprise, some time later, Archer was staring at what, to his eyes, seemed damnably like a clown, on the viewscreen.

“Alright, we’ll go, but can you... tell us anything about your species?” He was aware that he was “rolling charisma” so to speak, but experience’d taught him that sometimes the most aggressive people can be disarmed with a certain brand of charm.

“You must be a blind man, so I’ll explain. You are a primitive and savage member ofmyspecies. You limped out here in that ugly flying saucer with legs, probably all the way from _Dirt,_ probably trying to find more worlds to colonize. You’re probably not even stock humans like us. You’re fucking augments, the lowest swine ever to crawl through the mud of my homeworld. I would be doing the universe a favor if I zapped you dead here and now.”

“Augments were banned!” Archer said. His mind was spinning, and he still could not understand how this being had come from Earth.

“Good, if true. Tell me, do you come from Earth?”

“Yes. I was born in Utica.”

“New York?! My ancestors were from Brooklyn!”

Archer thought for a moment. “I can tell you what Brooklyn is like now, if you let us come alongside.”

“I have bought information of the homeworld before. Make me a better offer.”

“What’s the top warp speed of your vessel?”

“Six.”

“In Cochrane Units, or Selekon?[1]” Archer asked.

“Selekon. Only a fool uses a linear scale like Cochrane.”

“That would be three Cochranes... my ship was designed to make Selekon Seven, and was prepared to make Selekon Thirteen before it was thrown here by an accident.”

“You’re still in our space. But I would trade the life of Mr. Mayweather for this information.”

Archer’s eyebrows shot up.

“You have him?”

“Lucky for you, I do,” the imposing man in... clown makeup? said.

“I will trade this information.”

* * *

In the situation room, the clown leaned on the bulkhead. Mayweather was narrating his adventures aboard the Juggalo ship.

“So then they took me to the galley and made me wash dishes until you showed up. Turns out--" he laughed uproariously, “--they don’t even have a brig!”

“You’re lucky, we declared you dead and were going to announce it to the crew on morning shift.”

“All very well and good, and we _do_ have a dungeon, but explain to me the secret of warp thirteen!” the Juggalo said.

“Warp thirteen, sir?” Mayweather asked.

“Six point eight in your scale, ensign,” T’Pol said.

“Oh, that’s simple,” Mayweather said. He launched into an explanation that was anything but simple.

The fact was, Archer could not comprehend why the man was made up as a clown, but he came to terms with it, over the course of a long conversation, in which Captain Killah (he insisted this was his real name) and Archer took turns explaining difficult concepts from the web of cultural divergence that had grown between their branches of the human race.

Shran was increasingly confused. "So this Clown Code you speak of?”

“An ancient accord between those who wear the paint... and those who do not,” Killah said.

Archer shrugged. He knew what a clown was, at least.

“Well, you talk good, Archer-man,” Killah said at last. “But is there alcohol on this ship?”

Archer did not relish what would surely happen next. “We have a ship’s bar,” he said, furrowing his brow.

“Show me to it, for we must exchange ethanols! Do you have beamers?”

“Jim Beam?” Archer asked.

“Subatomic transport!”

“My godfather discovered it about fifteen years ago, yes.”

“Fantastic. My beamer is offline, but I’ll arrange to send over the coordinates of a cask or two of my best single malt whiskey!”

* * *

By the time that Archer and Killah had both gotten roaringly drunk, mostly on Cook’s own lager, Hoshi had forgotten much of what had transpired in the night. She got ready for work, smoked a cigarette under the bathroom vent, and took a long walk through the outer ring corridor of the ship, looking out the windows, before reporting to the bridge at 0600.

“Lieutenant,” T’Pol said, when she stepped out of the elevator. “You are not cleared for duty.”

“I’m sorry, Commander, I...”

“Forgot? Yes, I assumed you had.”

“Can’t I just...?”

“You may observe for a time. But it is best not to exert yourself. The human mind is resilient, but... you require rest.”

“Where’s the captain?”

“In the ship’s bar, performing... negotiations.”

“Is that where we do it now?”

“Lieutenant, if we were to have... that type of negotiations, I might be accused of infidelity by my husband.”

“You’re married again?”

“I understand it is difficult to cope with memory loss. I have experienced it myself.”

“Oh. I do remember that.”

“You officiated.”

“I did?

“As the only other fluent speaker of Vulcan aboard.”

“That’s nice. Is it Commander Tucker, ma’am?”

“Yes.”

“Apparently, I got married too.”

“I was unaware.”

“To some Denobulans.”

T’pol reflected that at some point, she would have criticized Hoshi on what would have been a hasty marriage. But somehow, she felt a sort of empathy that she had not... previously been allowed to feel, under the old rules. “My condolences on being separated so soon from your spouses.”

“Wives, actually. I’m as surprised as you are.”

“You are surprised?”

Hoshi looked at her. Somehow, she hadn’t meant any of the things that a human would have meant by it. “I knew I was gay. I mean I don’t remember it.”

“Perhaps Phlox can stimulate the memory centers of your frontal cortex in order to...” She turned and saw that Hoshi was sitting on the floor, hugging her knees and looking terrified.

“Lieutenant, you are clearly experiencing a great deal of stress. Perhaps you would like to speak to the ship’s counselor?”

“He hadn’t come aboard, remember?” Hoshi sobbed.

“I am surprised you remember. Yes, that is correct. Lieutenant Hanson, you have the bridge. Take no hostile action. Lieutenant Sato, walk with me.”

* * *

Killah was explaining the tense astropolitical situation of this part of the galaxy. There was a fringe of the Romulan Star Empire’s territory that divided local systems between those on the “northern” side of the Romulan strip and those to what he called “galactic south.”

“We,” Archer said, trying to sober up a little, “fought them last year--they had drone ships commanded remotely that could disguise themselves holographically. Before that we stumbled into their frontier. They had invisible mines that attach to your ship.”

Killah looked like a man suddenly seeing a grizzly bear in the forest ahead. “Ughh...” He gulped the rest of his vodka. “We don’t tend to go in there. When my gang came out this way decades ago, we fought their birds of prey all through that region, and it’s only grown wider since then...” he paused. “Shame you’ll have to cross it.”

It was Archer’s turn to look aghast. “No other choice?”

“Try going up, and you’ll fairly leave the galactic disk. Your ship wouldn’t survive interacting with that barrier. Well... it’d survive for a while. You’d live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension. Try going down, you’d be going into the core of Legthar space. They keep the Romulans at bay handily.”

“My god,” Archer muttered.

“The weak are eaten by the strong in their society. I admire that they do it honestly and without proxies. My boy, in the planet we come from, do the rich still own the labor of the poor?”

“You’d like it there now.”

* * *

Hoshi was again in her quarters, feeling doomed. T’Pol had offered her something incredible. If she agreed, T’Pol would try a mind meld, to see if that... jogged her memory? The exact effect was unclear.

Then T’Pol had started talking about getting “Phlox’s” permission, and Hoshi had frantically asked to be excused. T’Pol had sighed, almost emotively, in understanding, and nodded.

She had come back here and triedto bury herself in the next chapter of a book on Swahili grammar only to realize that she didn’t remember anything from the chapters that had come before, yet another language that had vanished from her head.

She looked back at the first chapter and found it oddly unfulfilling to study the language over again.

She put the book aside and found herself lying on her back and staring at the ceiling.

She felt alone.

* * *

Ship’s day came, though the captain was out of commission--it seemed he had tried to keep up with Killah drink for drink, something about trying not to insult him.

T’Pol continued her shift, monitoring the bizarre human ship without really seeming to. She sat in the captain’s chair at intervals, but manned the science station. Reed kept his face in the security screens most of the day, waiting for the ship to so much as twitch.

“They were a street gang in North America,” Reed muttered.

“Organized crime is often a logical response to an oppressive social system. We mustn’t hold that against them without any proof of current wrongdoing.”

“I just mean that I have no clue how they’re out here, now. You know they organized around a pair of musicians who dressed as clowns?”

“Fascinating. Clowns are sacred in the Syrranite religion.”

Reed halfway did a double take--a single take, in other words.“Why?”

“There may be an error of translation. Does the word mean someone who paints their face and behaves in an exaggerated manner?”

“Uh... yes, Commander.”

“It is a complicated subject.”

“In my opinion,”a voice said from the elevator,“it is a complicated subject for humans too.”

Captain Killah stepped onto the bridge with a very out-of-sorts looking Archer in tow.

“Clowns represent an exaggeration of the Id. For humans they personify humor, which is an interruption of the fear response in Earth mammals.” He hiccoughed and stumbled a little. “Thus we represent both humor and fear. Tell me, cat[2], do your species laugh?”

T’pol hesitated. “Inwardly,” she said, flatly.

“I see by your response that humor and fear are as deeply entwined for you. I tell you that it is a joy to embody such an ambiguity.”

“Fascinating.”

* * *

Hoshi had been all over the ship. She had sat in the astronomy lab and looked at the stars. She had leaned against the wall outside engineering and felt the gentle humming of the massive reactors inside. Finally, she found the sign of the “Lucky Pierre”tavern near Engineeringand chuckled at the innuendo/ With some hesitation, she went in.

The first thing she noticed in the room, full of empty tables and assorted furniture, was a couch where Chilton and McGee had fallen asleep, hand in hand, apparently watching a canned Bayern Munich versus Arsenal game.

A lone ensign read from a stack of papers at a table, and a mess of ex-pats had congregated at the bar.

Behind it, she was surprised to see the ex-ambassador, the man who had been the face of Vulcan on Earth for many decades, wearing, very oddly, human clothes, a pair of jeans and a cable-knit sweater.

He was pouring a dark beer for an Andorian with a gimpy antenna, whose uniform showed him to be the commander of an battle cruiser. Sitting here stranded, she thought, and doing his best to deny it.

She felt like she should recognize his face, but she just felt like he looked like Jim Carrey, a golden-age actor that someone--who?--she knew was always obsessing over.

She sat down next to the Andorian. “Sorry, I have a bad memory. You were...?”

The Andorian laughed uproariously. “That’s a good one, Hoshi.”

“Can I get a Clover Club?”

Soval muttered “coming right up” and looked at a hand-written notebook, then at a tablet computer. Finally, he raised an eyebrow, went to the bar fridge and got out an egg, which he dutifully cracked into a shaker. In went gin, lemon juice and something red and syrupy. He put in ice and shook it up.

Finally, Hoshi had in front of her a martini glass full of a pink, foamy and sour liquid. There was that bottomless, falling feeling as she looked at it.

She didn’t remember what it tasted like.

At last, she got up the courage to taste it, and suddenly she’d always known. It was sweet and sour and full of fruit and medicinal bitterness.

The feeling passed. She drained the glass in a smooth motion of the wrist, and felt momentarily like a beautiful woman in a tuxedo, sitting in a far nicer bar and drinking at her own expense.

That feeling also passed.

“What I meant was,” she said, after another Clover Club and an Espresso Martini, and choking up a little, “since the accident, since I... since I died on the operating table, I haven’t remembered everything, or even most things. It’s all there but” -- she burped, trying to be cute about it and failing -- “I can’t find the thread.”

“I know exactly what you mean, Lieutenant,” the Andorian said. “I’ve been stricken senseless by” --he burped-- “love.”

She felt that a pass was being had.At her. “You sexist prick,” she said, and hiccoughed.

“Naht for you,” he slurred. “For... I’d rather not say.”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” she said, sheepishly.

* * *

That night, T’pol was in her and Trip’s quarters, meditating and waiting for him to get off his shift.

Deep in the trance state, the sound of the doorbell barely filtered in to her awareness. But after a moment she opened her eyes and said “enter.”

Soval stepped in. He had on human clothes, jeans and a T-shirt that bore an image of a famous musician. He had a complex garment of knitted wool under his arm. She raised an eyebrow at him.

He spoke in formal Vulcan, in the tired and serene voice that he had come to speak in constantly in his old age. “It was inappropriate for me to wear my ambassadorial robes, bearing the insignia of the Vulcan High Command. I had no other clothes when I came aboard.”

“Understandable. I do not understand your choice of job aboard this vessel, however.”

“I possess no rank. It is practically speaking the only civilian job aboard.”

“It is a phase my husband is going through. It will probably not last.”

“I think it has a life of its own now, so to speak. We have a growing population of non-humans on this ship, and until now they had not congregated together in one place. And the humans feel better about their addiction to this substance when they take it together. I feel the place fulfills a social function.”

“Indeed?”

“I was in similar places on Earth. Forrest often invited me with him.

“Is this a social visit, Soval?"

“It can be, but I am concerned about Lieutenant Sato.”

“You believe that the procedure mentioned in the Kir’Shara could be therapeutic.”

Soval sighed, adjusted his pants (which he was quite unused to wearing.) “You are still uncomfortable with the term. It is amind meld.We no longer have any reason to be ashamed of our birthright. I who am exiled for this selfsame am not ashamed.”

“I refer to the larger procedure outlined in--”

“Perhaps I underestimated you. Have you brought the procedure to her attention, commander?”

“She recoiled.”

“I was under the impression she had melded with you before.”

“It was not from the mind meld that she recoiled. I mentioned getting Phlox’s opinion. It seems there are deep waters of emotion there,” T’pol said, falling back by degrees into the rich similes and metaphors of formal Vulcan.

“You doubt that the procedure is safe? Our ancestors restored the souls of the once-dead to new bodies, thejoining-again.” He savored the ancient and until recently, distateful words:fal tor-Pan. “You have seen before your face, T'Pau do such a thing.”

“I doubt my ability to do it safely.”

Soval nodded. “I do as well. You have melded infrequently, and under less then ideal circumstances. But I have melded since I was a child.”

“Let us put forward the idea again, with the Captain’s permission, if you will perform it.”

“I can.”

The door slid open again, and Trip walked in.

“Oh, howdy, chief. I take it Ensign Sontag has the bar?”

“She does.”

“Nice Hendrix shirt. Where’d you get it?”

“From Mr. Reed.”

“I gave it to him! Well, you look good in it.”

Soval hesitated. “Thank you. I must be going now.”

“Don’t let me keep you, chief.”

* * *

On the morning shift, Archer had the bridge. T’pol had asked to have the shift off, in exchange for covering his shift the day before.

Enterprise cruised alongside the Juggalo ship, transmitting massive amounts of data on warp drive to it--the holdup was that, to avoid any interstellar leakage that might eventually violate the moratorium on spreading advanced technologies to prewarp races, the transmission had to be secure. So it was heavily encrypted and sent with low-frequency radio that would quickly dissipate out in space. What might have taken an hour to transmit on open channels was going to take all day.

Reed and Shran seemed to be getting along quite well--they both kept a weather eye on the viewscreens; both very military-minded men.

Archer seemed reticent to give him a place in the bridge hierarchy, but he viewed this as an asset in itself: if nothing else, he could trust him as an outsider.

The day passed uneventfully--Reed went off duty, con shifts rotated, Reed came back and took the bridge from Archer, and so on towards night shift, with Shran in at intervals. He seemed in the mood to protect the humans from themselves, though it hardly seemed necessary now.

That night, a quite strange small group had gathered in a cramped crew quarters: Soval, T’Pol, Hoshi, Shran and Chilton.

Soval was there because he was, in some measure, the main event. He had agreed to perform the ritual. T’Pol and Hoshi were there as the participants. Chilton was there to hold a tricorder and look concerned.

Shran was there because he wanted to be asleep in the bottom bunk.

The idea was that Soval would... take her out of her head, put her in somebody else’s head, then put her back again immediately, in the right order or at least, insomekind of order. Then her scrambled neurons would reform because there was some pattern there for them to latch on to. That was the idea.

Having someone’s katra (soul?) in your head, he explained, in imprecise terms, could be traumatic, and he could not risk being both the carrier and the one performing the ritual.

So T’Pol would sit here very patiently and meditate on being a hard disk drive, or something like that.

Soval had the two women sit lotus posture opposite each other on the floor. He stooped over them and put two fingers on each of their temples on one side.

For Hoshi, the effect was immediate and terrifying. It was like the little space that contained her mind was pried suddenly wide open in a flash, a bang, a rush of whitewater to the frontal lobe.

Despite having some potential as a telepath, this was a feeling she’d only felt once before, when T’Pol had melded with her. But before, there had been two presences in this space, where there had been only one before. Now there were the three of them, T’Pol small and distant, and this new presence, like a storm contained in a forcefield, touching her mind, feeling around inside her mind in a way that was... terrifying, invasive and yet... it had a tenderness, an absolute transparent good will to it that she could not help but accept and open herself up to.

Time lost meaning very quickly. There was this feeling that the twenty-seven years that came up to this point were rather short compared to the years or minutes or seconds spent in this special meld.

Then there was a feeling of...leaving,as if she was being gently drawn along by a gentle tug on every fiber of her being at once until...

* * *

The data transfer ended. And with almost comic predictability, at least to Reed, the Juggaloes attacked. They came around suddenly, and only Travis’ quick thinking let them avoid the massive plama beam that shot out of the main cannon. Reed put a hand on the rail behind the captain’s chair, and in the light gravity (he always dialed it down to about point seven when he had the bridge) jumped out of the chair and swung over to the upper level behind him. He leaped over to the tactical station and fired a calculated shot at the plasma cannon. It was only then that he managed to call a tactical alert.

“Captain Archer to the bridge. Killah’s ship is taking hostile action.”

His sensors slowly resolved an image of the plasma cannon. He’d hit one of the gimbal rings and it had melted into the main gun body. If it wasn’t disabled, it at least wouldn’t have range of motion.

There was a tense handful of seconds in which the other ship merely continued its bank turn around the Enterprise, as precisely as a plane turning on a pylon.

Archer appeared, looking awful.

“The other shoe drops, sir,” Reed said.

“Have you engaged them?”

“I believe I disabled their main weapon, captain.”

Archer nodded and grunted. “What else do they have, Malcolm?"

“I think they have torpedo launchers, sir, but I don’t know what they shoot.”

“Evasive maneuvers, Mr. Mayweather."

The Enterprise made its own bank turn, rolling over to put its most powerful thrusters, on the ventral side, in position to turn it away from the enemy ship.[3]

* * *

Something hit the ship. The whole thing buffeted. In Soval’s quarters, the party engaging in the ritual was thrown about the place. Soval was thrown on top of Shran, Hoshi on top of T’Pol, and Chilton hit her head on the bulkhead.

Soval got to his feet, with a little (oddly tender) help from Shran. T’Pol tried to help Hoshi to her feet, only for her to collapse. Within a few moments she knew why.

* * *

“Travis, can we do warp seven?” Archer shouted.

“I think we can do warp six.”

“Good enough. NOW!”

Mayweather’s hands flew over the controls. He had everything set up, and at the last possible moment, as the enemy ship had brought its crippled plasma cannon in position to fire it at Enterprise’s engineering hull, he punched it.

And finally, Enterprise made warp six with no trouble, for almost the first time, leaving Killah’s ship far behind.

* * *

In sickbay, Hoshi was in an induced coma. Phlox couldn’t detect any neural activity.

Meanwhile, T’Pol was lying in almost as bad a state. She was conscious, but spiraling emotionally and neurologically.

Archer looked over the scene, the two of them on adjacent biobeds, one still as a corpse, the other writhing in a loose forcefield.

“SOVAL!” he barked, as the Vulcan walked in, wearing a woman’s blouse and high-waisted trousers.

“Yes, Captain Archer?”

“Why is Hoshi inside T’Pol?”

NOTES:

[1]: A question that will come to be the bane of starship engineers.

[2]: He is incorrect, but this is a common reaction on first meeting Vulcans. The silence with which they walk is perhaps the main reason.

[3]: Human engineers usually want large starships to handle like airplanes. Note that the Juggaloes are also guilty of this, which is probably the more absurd case.


End file.
